Happy Birthday, Wanda June Read online

  Yes! Please! You've got to get out right now! HAROLD moves a little more, stops again.

  HAROLD

  Just her neighbor and doctor? That's all? WOODLY

  (at the end of his patience, blurting) And her fiancé! HAROLD

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  (delighted)

  And her fiancé! How nice. I hope you'll be very happy--or is that what one says to the woman?

  WOODLY

  I've got to run! He turns out the overhead light.

  HAROLD

  You wish the woman good luck, and you tell the man how fortunate he is. That's how it goes. WOODLY

  (holding open the front door)

  I've literally got to run!

  HAROLD

  I won't try to keep up with you. I'm not as fast on my feet as I once was. All three exit. A moment later, HAROLD lets himself and LOOSELEAF in again with a key. He turns on the light again, roams the room, reacquainting himself with his beloved trophies. LOOSELEAF is jangled by the adventure. HAROLD chucks a lioness under her chin.

  HAROLD

  Miss me, baby? LOOSELEAF

  I dunno, boy. HAROLD

  Hm? LOOSELEAF

  It's a bitch.

  HAROLD

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  A bitch.

  LOOSELEAF

  Didn't recognize you. HAROLD

  We've never met. LOOSELEAF

  I wonder who'll recognize us first? They'll wet their pants. HAROLD

  I hope the men do. I would rather the women didn't. LOOSELEAF

  I'm gonna wet my pants. He laughs idiotically.

  HAROLD

  (looking around himself) Home, sweet home. LOOSELEAF

  One thing, anyway--at least Penelope didn't throw out all your crap. I bet Alice threw out all my crap after I'd been gone a week. HAROLD

  We'll see. HAROLD, who wants to savor the early moments of his homecoming alone, now tries to get the very jumpy LOOSELEAF out of the apartment.

  HAROLD

  It appears that we're going to have to wait awhile for any more action here, Colonel. Why don't you run on home while the evening's young. LOOSELEAF

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  Home. Jesus.

  (makes his hands tremble) I'm like this. Home!

  HAROLD

  Home is important to a man. LOOSELEAF

  You know what gets me? HAROLD

  (absently) No.

  LOOSELEAF

  How all the magazines show tits today.

  HAROLD

  Um. LOOSELEAF

  Used to be against the law, didn't it?

  HAROLD

  (fed up with LOOSELEAF) I suppose. LOOSELEAF

  (making no move to leave) Must have changed that law. Silence, while HAROLD attempts to be alone, even though LOOSELEAF is still present. HAROLD

  (thoughtfully hefting a broadsword, admiring its balance and strength)

  Home.

  LOOSELEAF

  You know what gets me?

  HAROLD does not respond.

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  LOOSELEAF

  You know what gets me? HAROLD

  (to himself) Oh, shit.

  LOOSELEAF

  (finding enough encouragement in this) How everybody says "fuck" and

  "shit" all the time. I used to be scared shitless I'd say "fuck" or

  "shit" in public, by accident. Now everybody says "fuck" and "shit,"

  "fuck" and "shit" all the time. Something very big must have happened while we were out of the country.

  HAROLD

  (flatly)

  Looseleaf--will you get the hell home?

  LOOSELEAF

  At least we found the diamonds. HAROLD

  At least! LOOSELEAF

  I'd really feel stupid if we didn't bring anything back home. HAROLD

  It's enough that you've brought yourself home! LOOSELEAF

  I wish you'd tell Alice that. And that Goddamn Mrs. Wheeler. HAROLD

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  Tell them yourself!

  LOOSELEAF

  You don't know my mother-in-law, boy. HAROLD

  After eight years in the jungle with you, I know Mrs. Wheeler better than I know anybody in the universe! LOOSELEAF

  I didn't tell you everything. HAROLD

  The time we were in a tree for fourteen days, you certainly tried to tell me everything about Mrs. Wheeler. LOOSELEAF

  I didn't even scratch the surface. You're lucky, boy. You come home, and nobody's here. When I go home, everybody's going to be there. HAROLD

  This room is full of ghosts. LOOSELEAF

  You're lucky, boy. My house is gonna be filled with people. HAROLD ignores this, attempts to savor the ghosts in the room. LOOSELEAF

  You know what gets me? HAROLD

  Go home! LOOSELEAF

  Thank God we found the fucking diamonds! file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (35 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]

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  HAROLD

  The hell with the diamonds! LOOSELEAF

  You were rich before. This is the first time I was ever rich. HAROLD

  Go home! Show them how rich you are for a change! LOOSELEAF

  Can I have the Cadillac? HAROLD

  Take the Cadillac and drive it off a cliff, for all I care. LOOSELEAF

  What'll you do for transportation? HAROLD

  I'll buy a hundred more Cadillacs. Go home! LOOSELEAF

  You know what gets me about that Cadillac? HAROLD

  Go home! LOOSELEAF

  When I drive it, I feel like I'm in the middle of a great big wad of bubblegum. I don't hear anything, I don't feel anything. I figure somebody else is driving. It's a bitch. HAROLD

  Go home.

  LOOSELEAF

  I'm liable to find anything! file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (36 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]

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  HAROLD

  That's the point! Walk in there and find whatever there is to find--before Alice can cover it up. LOOSELEAF

  I know, I know. I dunno. At least she's in the same house. Sure was spooky, looking in the window there, and there she was. HAROLD

  So long, Colonel. LOOSELEAF

  You know what gets me? HAROLD

  (taking hold ofLOOSELEAF and

  steering him to the front door) Let's talk about it some other time.

  LOOSELEAF

  How short the skirts are. HAROLD

  (opening the door) Good night, Colonel. It's been beautiful. LOOSELEAF

  Something very important about sex must have happened while we were gone. HAROLD shoves him out of the apartment and shuts the door. HAROLD starts to roam the room again, but the lion doorbell roars. HAROLD

  (going to the door) Hell!

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  HAROLD opens the door. LOOSELEAF comes in.

  LOOSELEAF

  You know what gets me? Those guys who went to the moon! To the moon, boy! HAROLD

  Leave me alone! After eight years of horrendously close association, the time has come to part
! I crave solitude and time for reflection-and then a reunion in privacy with my own flesh and blood. You and I may not meet again for months!

  LOOSELEAF

  Months? HAROLD

  I'm certainly not going to come horning back into your life tomorrow, and I will not welcome your horning back into mine. A chapter has ended. We are old comrades--at a parting of the ways.

  LOOSELEAF

  (bleakly, shrugging) I'm lonesome already. He exits.

  HAROLD

  (roaming the room again) The moon. The new heroism--put a village idiot into a pressure cooker, seal it up tight, and shoot him at the moon.

  (to his portrait)

  Hello there, young man. In case you're wondering, I could beat the shit out of you. And any woman choosing between us--sorry, kid, file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (38 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]

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  she'd choose me.

  (pleased with the room) I must say, this room is very much as I left it.

  (sees the cake)

  What's this? A cake? "Happy Birthday, Wanda June"? Who the hell is Wanda June?

  Blackout.

  SCENE FOUR

  MUSIC indicates happiness, innocence, and weightlessness. Spotlight comes up on WANDA JUNE, a lisping eight-year-old in a starched party dress. She is as cute as Shirley Temple.

  WANDA JUNE

  Hello. I am Wanda June. Today was going to be my birthday, but I was hit by an ice-cream truck before I could have my party. I am dead now. I am in Heaven. That is why my parents did not pick up the cake at the bakery. I am not mad at the ice-cream truck driver, even though he was drunk when he hit me. It didn't hurt much. It wasn't even as bad as the sting of a bumblebee. I am really happy here! It's so much fun. I am glad the driver was drunk. If he hadn't been, I might not have got to Heaven for years and years and years. I would have had to go to high school first, and then beauty college. I would have had to get married and have babies and everything. Now I can just play and play and play. Any time I want any pink cotton candy I can have some. Everybody up here is happy-the animals and the dead soldiers and people who went to the electric chair and everything. They're all file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (39 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM] HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

  glad for whatever sent them here. Nobody is mad. We're all too busy playing shuffleboard. So if you think of killing somebody, don't worry about it. Just go ahead and do it. Whoever you do it to should kiss you for doing it. The soldiers up here just love the shrapnel and the tanks and the bayonets and the dum dums that let them play shuffleboard all the time--and drink beer.

  Spotlight begins to dim and carnival music on a steam calliope begins to intrude, until, at the end of the speech, WANDA JUNE is drowned out and the stage is black.

  WANDA JUNE

  We have merry-go-rounds that don't cost anything to ride on. We have Ferris wheels. We have Little League and girls' basketball. There's a drum and bugle corps anybody can join. For people who like golf, there is a par-three golf course and a driving range, with never any waiting. If you just want to sit and loaf, why that's all right, too. Gourmet specialties are cooked to your order and served at any time of night or day... Sudden silence.

  WOODY WOODPECKER VOICE

  Ha ha ha ha ha! (pistol shot)

  You got me, pal.

  Silence.

  Spotlight comes up on LOOSELEAF HARPER, who wears the clothes he will wear in the next scene--new sports clothes, file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (40 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]

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  a shirt open at the neck. As always, he is friendly and embarrassed.

  LOOSELEAF

  When Penelope asked me to say something about dropping the bomb on Nagasaki, I didn't give a very good answer, I guess. It's a very complicated question. Jesus--you know? You have to explain what it's like to be in the Air Force and how they give you your orders and all that. What it feels like to be in a plane, what the world looks like down there. After I got home from the war, the minister of my church asked me if I would speak to a scout troop that met in the church basement. So I did. They met on Thursday nights. I used to belong to that troop. I never made Eagle Scout. But you know something? It's a very strange kind of kid that makes Eagle Scout. They always seem so lonesome, like they'd worked real hard to get a job nobody else cares about. They get a whole bunch of merit badges. That's how you get to be an Eagle Scout. I don't think I had over five or six merit badges. The only one I remember is Public Health. That was a bitch. The Boy Scout Manual said I was supposed to find out what my town did about sewage. Jesus, they just dumped it all in Sugar Creek.

  (laughs idiotically) Sugar Creek! That was a long time ago, but it's all coming back to me now. There was another merit badge you could get for roller skating. There used to be a roller rink at a file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (41 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]

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  bend in Sugar Creek, up above where the sewage went in. I got in a fight there one time. I had on roller skates, and the guy I was fighting had on basketball shoes. He had a tremendous advantage over me. He was a little guy, but he beat the shit out of me. I had to laugh like hell. Don't ever fight a guy when you've got on roller skates.

  (silence)

  Jesus--I remember my mother used to make me chew bananas for a full minute before I swallowed--so I wouldn't get sick. Makes you wonder what else your parents told you that wasn't true.

  Blackout.

  SCENE FIVE

  SPOTLIGHT comes up on HAROLD. He sits on the front seat of an imaginary car. The seat is covered with zebra skin.

  HAROLD

  The night I met Penelope, I had no beard--so imagine me, if you can, without a beard. Actually, I wasn't as good-looking then as I am now. And, if anything, me health has improved. At any rate--I had just come home from Kenya--to discover that my third wife, Mildred, like the two before her, had become a drunken bum. In my experience, alcoholism is far more prevalent among women than men. So I got into my automobile-He pantomimes turning the ignition key. The sound of a starter and a powerful engine responds. He pantomimes putting the car in gear and driving away from the curb. file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (42 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM] HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

  Appropriate sounds are heard.

  HAROLD

  I drive through the night, until I was attracted by a sign which said-Spotlight comes up on PENELOPE, who wears a skimpy carhop outfit she has had on under her coat in the previous scene. HAROLD

  "Hamburger Heaven."

  PENELOPE

  Heaven. HAROLD pantomimes swerving into Hamburger Heaven. Tires squeal. He pantomimes a stop, kills the engine. He blows his imaginary horn. A real horn blows the bugle call for

  "charge." PENELOPE crosses to HAROLD.

  PENELOPE

  Can I help you, sir? HAROLD

  I think so, daughter. How old are you? PENELOPE

  Eighteen-(pause)

  and a half.

  HAROLD

  A springbok, an oryx, a gemsbok--a gazelle. PENELOPE

  Sir? HAROLD

  Raw hamburger, please--and a whole onion. I want to eat the onion like an apple. Do you understand?

  PENELOPE

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  Yes, sir.

  (to the audience)

  It was a very unusual automobile. It was a Cadillac, but it had water buffalo horns where the bumpers should be.

  (to HAROLD)

  And what to drink?

  HAROLD

  What time do you get off work
, my child? PENELOPE

  I'm sorry, sir, I'm engaged to be married. My boyfriend would be mad if I went out with another man.

  HAROLD

  Did you ever daydream that you would one day meet a friendly millionaire? PENELOPE

  I'm engaged. HAROLD

  Daughter--I love you very much. PENELOPE

  You don't even know me. HAROLD

  You are woman. I know woman well. PENELOPE

  This is crazy. HAROLD

  Destiny often seems that way. You're going to marry me. PENELOPE