Happy Birthday, Wanda June
Page 6
I know malaria. Malaria isn't caused by the bites of bats. WOODLY
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HAROLD
Colonel Harper and I once shared a treetop with a family of bats. There was a flash flood. There were piranha fish in the water. That's how Colonel Harper lost his little toe. WOODLY
You have chills? HAROLD
Chills, fevers, sweats. You can describe it and name it after yourself: "the Woodly galloping crud." WOODLY enjoys the joke and the blooming friendship.
HAROLD
You can also describe its cure. I'm eating its cure. WOODLY
I was going to ask. HAROLD
Pacqualinincheewa root. WOODLY
Would you say that again? HAROLD
Pacqualinincheewa root. Means "cougar fang." Cures anything but a yellow streak down the back.
WOODLY
I've never heard of it. HAROLD
Congratulations. By crossing twenty-eight feet of cockroach infested carpet, you've become the file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (75 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM] HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
third white man ever to hear of it.
WOODLY
(fascinated) Are you've seen it work cures?
HAROLD
Hundreds. PENELOPE
I'm so glad you like each other. I was so scared, so scared. HAROLD
(breaking off a piece, offering it) Have some.
WOODLY
Thank you. Thank you very much. PENELOPE
I believe in miracles now. HAROLD
Wasn't that sweet of me? WOODLY
More and more we find ourselves laying aside false pride and looking into the pharmacopoeias of primitive people. Curare, ephedrine--we've found some amazing things. HAROLD
We have, have we?
WOODLY
That's an editorial we, of course. I haven't turned up anything personally. HAROLD
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editorial we. Take that away from you, and you'd disappear.
PENELOPE
Harold! HAROLD
I could carve a better man out of a banana!
PENELOPE
Please-HAROLD You and your damned bedside manner and your damned little black bag full of miracles. You know who filled that bag for you? Not Alice-sit-by-the-fires like yourself. Men with guts filled it, by God--men with guts enough to pay the price for miracles--suffering, ingratitude, loneliness, death-WOODLY
(off balance)
Good Lord.
HAROLD
I can just hear the editorial wee wee-weeing when Looseleaf and I start flying in pacqualinincheewa root. I can hear the Alice-sit-by the-fires now: "We discovered it in the Amazon Rain Forest. Now we cure you with it. Now we lower our eyes with becoming modesty as we receive heartfelt thanks." HAROLD suddenly goes to WOODLY, takes his hand and pretends abject gratitude. HAROLD
Oh, bless you, Doctor, bless you-file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (77 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]
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oh healer, oh protector, oh giver of life.
WOODLY withdraws his hand, examines it as though it were diseased.
PENELOPE
He doesn't deserve this! You don't know him. It isn't fair!
HAROLD
He thought he could take my place. It is now my privilege to give an unambiguous account of why I don't think he's man enough to do that. WOODLY
I thought she was a widow. HAROLD
You were wrong, you quack! PENELOPE
Awful. (approaching WOODLY, but not getting too close) I can't tell you how sorry I am.
HAROLD
Say hello to your mother. PENELOPE
(fervently) Do say hello to your mother.
WOODLY
I'm taking her to the airport a few minutes from now. She's going to East St. Louis--to visit an aunt. PENELOPE
Tell her to have a nice trip. WOODLY
(moving towards the file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (78 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM] HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
front door)
Thanks.
HAROLD laughs. This stings WOODLY to a cold, peace-loving anger.
WOODLY
I'm going to have to report you to the Department of Health.
HAROLD
What for? WOODLY
Quarantine, possibly. You may be suffering from a loathsome disease which the American people could do without. Goodbye. He exits instantly.
HAROLD
Now that's what I call fun.
PENELOPE
Ghastly, cruel, unnecessary. HAROLD
You'll get so you enjoy twitting weaklings again. You used to eat it up. PENELOPE
I did?
HAROLD
We were one hell of a pair--and we'll be one again. What we need is a honeymoon. Let's start right now.
PENELOPE
A trip, you mean?
HAROLD
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I had a trip. We'll honeymoon here. (to PAUL)
Go out and play.
PAUL
Play? HAROLD
Your mother and I do not wish to be disturbed for three full hours.
PENELOPE
He hasn't had breakfast yet. HAROLD
Buy yourself breakfast. (takes his billfold from his hip pocket, hands PAUL a $100 bill) There we go.
PAUL
A hundred dollars! HAROLD
The smallest thing I've got. PAUL
Can I get dressed first? HAROLD
Make it fast. PAUL exits to his bedroom. HAROLD turns to PENELOPE.
HAROLD
Honeymoon! Honeymoon! Say it: Honeymoon! PENELOPE
It's so--so stark. HAROLD
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PENELOPE
Just--bang--we have a honeymoon. HAROLD
(beginning to stalk her cunningly) I'm not going to strike you. I am going to be as gentle as pie--as lemon meringue pie. You mustn't run away now. This is your loving husband approaching. I'm your husband. Society approves!
PENELOPE wants to run, but doesn't.
HAROLD
Good! You held your ground. HAROLD is very close now, but not touching her. HAROLD
Now--turn around, if you would. PENELOPE
Turn around? HAROLD
(laughing) I'm not about to introduce to you a jungle novelty. What I have in mind is massage--a perfectly decent massage. Turn around, turn around. PENELOPE obeys.
HAROLD
I'm going to touch your shoulders very gently now. You mustn't scream.
(touches her
shoulders gently, expertly) So tense, so tense.
PENELOPE
You shouldn't have talked to file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (81 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM] HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
Norbert that way.
HAROLD
You're thinking with your brain instead of your body. That's why you're so tense! Forget Norbert. Relax. It's body time. PENELOPE
I have a brain. HAROLD
We all do. But now it's body time. Relax. Ideally, the body of a woman should feel like a hot water bottle filled with Devonshire cream. You feel like a paper bag crammed with curtain rods. Think of your muscle
s one by one. Let them go slack. Relax. Let the brain go blank. Relax. That's the idea-that's my girl. Now the small of the back. Let those knots over those kidneys unsnarl. PAUL
(entering, dressed to go out and play) Dad-HAROLD
(hanging on to
PENELOPE, but knowing the mood has been broken) Couldn't you have vanished quietly out the back door?
PAUL
A hundred dollars for breakfast? HAROLD
Leave a tip. PENELOPE
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(suddenly twisting away, having been
nearly hypnotized) I have some change!
HAROLD
Ram it up your ass! He realizes at once that his violent side has severely damaged the side of him which is the great seducer. PENELOPE and PAUL are straight as ramrods.
HAROLD
I do beg your pardon. (sincerely)
Those words were illy chosen. There is tension in all of us here. Something you must both understand, however, is that the head of this household is home, and he is Harold Ryan, and people do what he says when he says it. That's the way this particular clock is constructed. Lion doorbell roars.
HAROLD
Sometimes even I hate that thing. PAUL goes reeling to the door in terror, admits LOOSELEAF, who has also been sleeping in his clothes.
LOOSELEAF
(walking right in) I've been looking at motorcycles. HAROLD
Go home! LOOSELEAF
You ever own a motorcycle? HAROLD
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A trip is what we'll take. (to LOOSELEAF)
I don't want to talk about motorcycles. I don't want to talk about tits. Go home!
LOOSELEAF
Haven't got one. PENELOPE
(to LOOSELEAF) And you went home unannounced, too?
LOOSELEAF
I dunno. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! I did. HAROLD
And how were things? LOOSELEAF
Let's talk about something else. PENELOPE
(to HAROLD) Alice got married again.
LOOSELEAF
She did? PENELOPE
You didn't even find that out? LOOSELEAF
There was so much going on. PENELOPE
She married an accountant named Stanley Kestenbaum. LOOSELEAF
So that's it! "Kestenbaum, Kestenbaum." Everybody was yelling "Kestenbaum, Kestenbaum." I thought it was some foreign language. file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (84 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]
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HAROLD
Otherwise, how are things? LOOSELEAF
I sure didn't expect her to drop dead. PENELOPE
Dead! LOOSELEAF
Jesus.
PENELOPE
(sick)
Alice is dead?
LOOSELEAF
No, no--shit no. (stops short)
Excuse me, Penelope.
PENELOPE
For what? LOOSELEAF
For saying "shit." Or is that okay now? PENELOPE
(shrilly)
Who's dead?
LOOSELEAF
My mother-in-law. Fire engines, pulmotors, doctors, cops, coroners-PENELOPE What happened? LOOSELEAF
Well--I walked up to the front door. I was still alive. Big surprise. I rang the doorbell, and old Mrs. Wheeler answered. She had her Goddamn knitting. I said, "Guess file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (85 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM] HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
who?" She conked right out.
PENELOPE
How horrible. LOOSELEAF
Yeah--cripes. I never did get any sense out of Alice. She found me holding up the old lady, dead as a mackerel. It was a bitch. You know--maybe Mrs. Wheeler was going to die then and there anyway, even if I'd been the paper boy. Maybe not. I dunno, boy. That's civilian life for you. Who knows what kills anybody? 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
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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)
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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 shit 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.
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HAROLD
Cook, by God! Cook! You're the nigger 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. file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (89 of 143) [10/16/
2004 4:36:53 PM]