HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
earthly use to anyone tonight. Tomorrow is another day.
She closes the door and locks it.
HAROLD
(to audience)
End of Act One.
Blackout.
ACT TWO
SCENE ONE
DARKNESS. PAUL, alone in the living room, hammers on his mother's door. He wears pajamas.
PAUL
Mom! Mother! Mom!
Toilet flushes. Lights come up on the living room. It is morning.
PAUL
Dad's got jungle fever, Mom. What'll I do? Mom!
HAROLD
(a moment of exhaustion) Damn.
PAUL
Mom?
Door to the master bedroom suite opens. PENELOPE appears in the doorway. She has decided during an almost sleepless night that she owes it to PAUL and to her own self-respect to explore the possibility of beginning her life with HAROLD anew. She is terrified of him. She hopes that if she can keep calm and open, her fears will diminish. Perhaps she can love him again.
PENELOPE
(attempting to behave file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (71 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
mechanically as a
good wife should)
What are his symptoms?
PAUL
Shivers and sweats and groans. His teeth chatter. What'll we do?
PENELOPE
What does he say to do?
PAUL
He can hardly talk.
HAROLD
(responding to a last twinge of nausea)
Bluh.
PENELOPE
You'd better get Dr. Woodly.
PAUL
Really?
PENELOPE
It is an emergency, isn't it?
PAUL
(uncertainly)
Yeah.
PENELOPE
Then get him.
PAUL
(thinking she has
made a mistake)
Okay.
He exits through front door, leaves door open. We hear him knocking on a door in the hallway.
PAUL
Dr. Woodly?
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (72 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
HAROLD enters, drained but recovering. He chews on a root. He has slept in the shirt and trousers he wore the night before. He is barefoot. PAUL knocks again.
PAUL
Dr. Woodly?
There is the sound of WOODLY's door opening. WOODLY and PAUL speak unintelligibly, WOODLY evidently inviting PAUL in for a moment. WOODLY's door closes.
HAROLD
What's that all about?
PENELOPE
We thought a doctor might help.
HAROLD
Your old beau?
PENELOPE
We thought it was an emergency.
HAROLD
I don't want that chancre mechanic in here.
PENELOPE
He's a very decent man, Harold.
HAROLD
We all are.
PENELOPE
Shouldn't you lie down?
HAROLD
When I'm dead-(throwing it away) or fucking.
PENELOPE
Paul said you were awfully sick. file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (73 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
HAROLD
I was, I was. It never lasts long. He hears WOODLY's door open, is alert to WOODLY's approach, continues to speak to PENELOPE absently.
HAROLD
The Indians call it "Zambakeetya"--the little cloudburst. WOODLY and PAUL enter. WOODLY is correctly professional and carries a little black bag.
WOODLY
Ah! You're ambulatory!
HAROLD
What a brilliant diagnosis!
PENELOPE
You know what I want?
(all look at her)
I want you both to be friends. I know you both, respect you both. You should be friends.
HAROLD
Nothing would please me more.
PENELOPE
(believing him)
Thank God!
WOODLY
(pleased but careful) Well now--what seems to be the trouble with the patient today? A touch of malaria, perhaps?
HAROLD
I know malaria. Malaria isn't caused by the bites of bats.
WOODLY
You've been bitten by bats? file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (74 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
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 cockroachinfested 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
Everything about you is the file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (76 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
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 weewee-weeing when Looseleaf and I start flying in pacqualinincheewa root. I can hear the Alice-sit-bythe-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
