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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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
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
You used to like it stark!
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
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 muscles 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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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
(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
(to PENELOPE)
You're right! We'll take a trip. file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (83 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
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]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
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
