Would you please pass the fucking file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/K...gut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (107 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
catsup again? Was it dangerous testing planes?
LOOSELEAF
I dunno. Who knows? You know-you're up there, and you're in some plane nobody ever flew before. You put her into a dive, and everything starts screaming and shaking, and maybe some pipe breaks and squirts oil or gasoline or hydraulic fluid in your face. You wonder how the hell you ever got in such a mess, and then you pull back on the controls, and you black out for a couple of seconds. When you come to, everything's usually fairly okay--except maybe you threw up all over yourself. It's just another job, but you try and tell Alice that.
HAROLD
Insurance!
SHUTTLE
You actually sold insurance!
LOOSELEAF
I tried.
(indicating HAROLD) I sold him some. That was the only insurance I ever sold.
Hyena doorbell laughs.
SHUTTLE
What an awful sound!
HAROLD
Get used to it.
(to PAUL)
Back door, Paul.
PAUL exits to the kitchen.
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/K...gut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (108 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
HAROLD
(to SHUTTLE)
It's possible, of course, that you'll die in Africa.
SHUTTLE
I've considered that.
HAROLD
Selling vacuum cleaners isn't the best preparation you could have.
SHUTTLE
I just want one true adventure before I die.
HAROLD
That can be arranged.
PAUL appears at the mouth of the doorway. He has something amazing to announce.
PAUL
Dad?
HAROLD
Who was it?
PAUL
It's Mom.
He steps aside. PENELOPE appears. HAROLD and SHUTTLE stand, HAROLD angrily.
LOOSELEAF
(openly, cheerfully) Hi, Penelope.
HAROLD
(to LOOSELEAF)
Shut up, you ninny!
(to PENELOPE)
You were never to come here again-for any reason whatsoever!
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/K...gut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (109 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
PENELOPE
I came for my clothes.
HAROLD
Sneaking in the back door.
PENELOPE
I rang. It seemed like the proper door for a servile, worthless organism to use.
HAROLD
Your clothes are at the city dump by now. Perhaps you can get a map from the Department of Sanitation.
PENELOPE
I came for Paul as well.
HAROLD
If he wants to go.
PENELOPE
You took him to the funeral, I hear.
HAROLD
He'd never seen a corpse. He's seen a dozen now.
PENELOPE
A dozen?
HAROLD
It's a big and busy funeral home.
PENELOPE
(to PAUL)
Did you like it, dear?
HAROLD
It isn't a matter of liking. It's a matter of getting used to death-as a perfectly natural thing. Would you mind leaving? No woman file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/K...gut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (110 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
ever walks out on Harold Ryan, and then comes back--for anything.
PENELOPE
Unless she has nerve.
HAROLD
More nerve than the doctor, I must admit. He hasn't been home for two days. Has he suddenly lost interest in sleep and color television--and the violin?
PENELOPE
He knows you shattered his violin.
HAROLD
I'm dying to hear of his reaction. The thrill of smashing something isn't in the smashing, but in the owner's reactions.
PENELOPE
He cried.
HAROLD
About a broomstick and a cigar box--and the attenuated intestines of an alley cat.
PENELOPE
Two hundred years old.
HAROLD
He feels awful loss--which was precisely my intention.
PENELOPE
(moving toward the violin, and,
incidentally, placing herself much closer to SHUTTLE)
He had hoped that someone would be playing it still--two hundred years file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/K...gut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (111 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
from now.
HAROLD
(echoing, expressing the futility of such long-term expectations) Hope.
He spots the vacuum cleaner, probes it with his toe, asks SHUTTLE with seriousness.
HAROLD
Do you hope with all your heart that someone will be using this vacuum cleaner two hundred years from now?
SHUTTLE starts to answer, but stops, supposing that he is being made sport of.
HAROLD
Fifty years?
SHUTTLE
You're making a joke.
HAROLD
(not joking)
I'm interested in long-term expectations.
SHUTTLE
(flatly, protecting his dignity)
It's engineered to last about fifteen years.
HAROLD
(downstage center, addressing the
civilized world)
Things. Oh--you silly people and your things. Things, things, things.
PENELOPE
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/K...gut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (112 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
(to SHUTTLE, as
HAROLD reflects
majestically on the emptiness of materialism) You and Harold are friends?
SHUTTLE
(revealing how mixed and worried his
feelings are)
He's the most wonderful guy I ever met, Penelope. He's the most complicated guy I ever met. I can't believe it, but he's going to take me to Africa with him.
HAROLD
Things.
PENELOPE
You feel I've done a dreadful thing--leaving him?
SHUTTLE
(almost hypnotized) If I were married to him, I sure wouldn't walk out.
HAROLD
(directly to the audience) Never mind the condition of your body and your spirit! Look after your things, your things!
PENELOPE
(to LOOSELEAF)
And you, Colonel? Let me guess: You don't know.
LOOSELEAF
I dunno.
HAROLD
(to the audience)
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/K...gut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (113 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
Go live in a safe-deposit box--with your things.
LOOSELEAF
Jesus--I wouldn't want to be married to him. You know?
HAROLD
What's this?
LOOSELEAF
I wouldn't want to be married to me. We're too crazy. You know?
HAROLD
In what way, pray tell?
LOOSELEAF
I didn't like that violin thing. That was sad.
HAROLD
Tit for tat--as simple as that.
LOOSELEAF
You never played a violin.
HAROLD
You did?
LOOSELEAF
Yeah. I practically forgot. But after you busted that thing, I got to thinking, "Jesus--maybe I'll start the violin again." That didn't just belong to Woodly. That belonged to everybody. Maybe he would have sold it to me, and I could have some fun. After you busted the violin, boy, and Penelope walked out, I thought to myself, "Jesus--who could blame her?"
HAROLD
Maybe it's time you got out. file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/K...gut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (114 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
LOOSELEAF
Me?
HAROLD
You.
LOOSELEAF
Okay.
(pause)
Okay.
HAROLD
You're an imbecile.
LOOSELEAF
I know you think that.
HAROLD
Everybody thinks that.
LOOSELEAF
Anybody who'd drop an atom bomb on a city has to be pretty dumb.
HAROLD
The one direct, decisive, intelligent act of your life!
LOOSELEAF
(shaking his head) I don't think so.
(pause)
It could have been.
HAROLD
If what?
LOOSELEAF
If I hadn't done it. If I'd said to myself, "Screw it. I'm going to let all those people down there live."
HAROLD
They were enemies. We were at war. file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/K...gut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (115 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
LOOSELEAF
