YOU CAN’T BEAT THE SYSTEM, SAM
(Told in 11 scenes between the asylum, ,the college, and the apartments)
Cast of characters
The Farnhams: Leon Esta Aaron
The Doctors: Buckshaw Shine Lesion Fee Fee and M/s Molly
The patients: Howie, the Group Captain, Little Charlie Mike
Jockee alias six pack, Ragtime (Robby) his father, Ben
And their head nurse psychologist, Mister Franco
plus the Professor and Leon Farnham
The sweethearts :Kentucky Ms..Molly
Group Captain’s mother: Grandma
And the dependents: Mutt Jeff the super Mike’s mother American Red Cross
hostess minister Dutchman’s manager Sandy Queenie Hayakashi a customer
Monday morning, patient staff government....doctors in their scrubs, male patients sitting around in a circle on an open ward in a hospital somewhere in the “East”
DR LESION
....everybody’s so quiet. I was wondering if that meant everybody’s weekend was par
for the course. “Had a wonderful time with the missus and the kids. No one got into a rut.
GROUP CAPTAIN
(beat beat ) Who’s going to be the first one to break the ice. Sitting around like dumb dumbs three times a week in this age of Aquarius and Pisces.....tTlll the good doctors .what you did on your weekend passes..returning to your former environments and loved ones. The humans who made you what your are– depressed, real depressed in the first place..(beat beat) You got anything to say for yourself Little Charlie? Mike? Farnhamn? Professor? Ragtime? Six pack?
FARNHAM
I had a fabulous time, No bull, I really did.. I hated the idea of coming back. I’m an educated guy and I don’t like the idea of killing time with a lot of freak outs–not that I have anything personally against you fellows– who blow their minds on an open ward.. If it were a closed ward., I’d understand. But an open one. My God if the public ever found out, why the taxpayers would...
DR SHINE
Why’d you come back then? No one is sending gray hounds after you.
FARNHAM
Because I’m curious about the results of my IQ tests. and .personality profile. I don’t want to grow up and become something I’m not.–a respectable well oiled money maker.. $75 an hour..And an overhead that’s murder.
DR BUCKSHAW
I’m glad you decided on your own.....without any nudging on the part of the staff to come back.
FARNHAM
I can’t afford any more elopements. My last one cost me four days in a private hospital— you know what that costs .these days.– a round trip economy jet–ai night on a hospital cot..two visits to a university hospital...two side journeys to a shrink in Heavenly Hills.. Besides all the phone calls and aggravation.......And the results? You want to know the box score?.....They turned me down at three admissions......”nothin’ wrong with you..nothing wrong except a little trauma...just a little trauma. You got a soul.. You don’t need me. I need you....you’re not sick at all. It’s all up in your mind..”
M/s MOLLY
Did ja get any sleep ,Leon?
FARNHAM
Snatches here and there. But nothing substantial to throw me into a big sleep of a dream. I was acting like the Red Baron. Only instead of bird dogging a dog fight, I was fighting myself. Running from hospital to hospital..doctor to doctor..and getting nowhere..
DR SHINE
Did you do any labor? What was your source of income?
FARNHAM
I tried, really I did. The P.O. was willing to throw their first class mail in my direction at a buck eighty an hour....But why work when I can live rent free here with all you uplifting transcendental humans...You doctors are great, really great, if you never cure anybody.
DR BUCKSHAW
I appreciate your vote of confidence, Doctor. Farnham. But all we promise to do... a.ll we ever promise to do when we admit you to psychotherapy and group is for you to submerge your personality and let us recharge your batteries..
FARNHAM
I got an ego. Of course I got an ego .Do any of you peoples know anyone who hasn’t?....You want to blindfold us?..make guinea pigs and second class citizens out of us.?. Blindfold us like the silent see no evil hear no evil speak no evil.majority. Still I’d like to think I’m a reasonable man and willing to buy your bloody Marys of three squares a day.... and way out psychological testing..all in order to justify your friggen existence.
DR SHINE
Bravo bravo (ad lib) Heavy heavy
FARNHAM
In the name of scientific research I’ll take your block test blindfolded...and if I can’t find the right holes for the right blocks by the sweeping second hand of a tout’s stop watch, I’ll buy you all a can of noiseless zoop soup...you guys are playing God with a Lefty, remember.(holding his left hand high)
DR BUCKSHAW
(beat beat). If we’re all members of the silent majority, we can’t afford to shlurp our zoop or even use noisemakers on our birthdays.
DR SHINE
A primary test on the blocks showed a mild impairment of abilities dependent upon organic brain damage. Whether a lesion exists in the posterior part of the brain, possibly bilateral, who’s to say....but it probably reflects an inability to concentrate effectively and therefore may be a symptom of brain damage.....(uses binaca to spray his throat)
MIKO
My mudder didn’t want me to come back, either She says a man is born. to work in this life. That’s why he’s put here. to voick like a dirty slave.. Voick she says, so she had her steady- the maitre de at the Dutchman- line me up a steady job.
GROUP CAPTAIN
You think you’re ready?
MIKO
You’re never ready if you have to stop and think about it.
LITTLE CHARLIE
What’s it take for a steady job? Besides getting out of bed in the morning..
MIKO
I set up the forks knives and spoons in the a.m. In the p.m .I take my O.J.T as a fry cook, croissanting hamburgers, America’s staple diet..
.
LTTLE CHARLIE
Quanto dinero?
MIKO
Practical Charlie. Always how many mucho centavos?
LITTLE CHARLIE
And why not, why not It takes money to live .honyah.
GROUP CAPTAIN
With the cost of living being what it is..a penny for your thoughts may mean the difference between going hungry and starving to death.
MIKO
If any guy can pay his own way by eating his thoughts, then my mudder’s a most eligible widow–for the guy who’s got dough to burn. I’m tired of being single so long. She’s divorced four and buried one., and this is the longest she’s been without a man. I don’t know how she can stand it being clogged up so long and her having to compete with teeneyboppers and bobbysoxers..
FARNHAM
It’s her big soul and all that experience you just can’t ignore....getting rid of five husbands..How can you sideswipe a fact like that. I’m only speaking for myself, but it makes you wantr to cower in a corner ...drag yourself into an air raid shelter...and hide under the covers
M/s MOLLY
But what about your weekend? Are you glad to be back?
MIKO
M/s Molly I respect you because you’re a real woman..My stomach was acting like a six month baby girl was jumping up and down.. My mudder figured the shrinks could help save the little tot..
LITTLE CHARLIE
(putting on the dog) They are not shrinks and we are not guinea pigs. They are beautiful people, who are writing a message for our time..
DR BUCKSHAW
And what may I ask is that ,message, Little Charles? .
LITTLE CHARLIE
(beat beat) What’s in it for me!
DR LESION
Did Charles take his coffee without a capsule of thorizon?
LITTLE CHARLIE
I’m off tranquillizers and onto life. ... without us patients where you doctors be. On your own elephant drug, that’s where.
DR LESION
(patronizing) A twenty five milligrams of trillafon can pep you up. Your day would run that much smoother. Without us doctors where would you patients be? ..
DR BUCKSHAW
How’s the Professor functioning, sir? You cutting it on the outside? . .
PROFESSOR
I left my good wife after twenty years.. Nothing traumatic, I just walked out, leaving the gate a wee open.;...
DR SHINE
Would you say that was right after cohabiting for over two decades? Thru war and peace .Depression recession. prosperity?
.
PROFESSOR
L’m loose finally after being up tight and having all those hangups for miling highs ....But I’m not free yet. You can tell by looking at me....(beat) I’m still carrying excess mental baggage.
GROUP CAPTAIN
You’re mind boggling out of sight
PROFESSOR
I use to blame my father for my Fate. And my sister for choice of mate...
LITTLE CHARLIE
You’re a poet and don’t know it..
PROFESSOR
She was a street walker. Said she didn’t need marriage to get a man. She could hire any stud off the green.
DR LESION
You will be asking for your discharge, I suppose. But take your time Professor. You never know on the outside when you ,think you got it made..Here we can pick you off the floor if you fall. If you go higher than a kite and start climbing the walls, we can always lock the doors.
PROFESSOR
I’m going to open a bookstore.....indirect lighting, neon lights, get away from the college rat race.....and count for something more than being an educator, brainwashed by propaganda and activists..
LITTLE CHARLIE
You sound higher than a kite already. And you ain’t drowned your pills yet.. I for one don’t think you’re ready .for the outside.
GROUP CAPTAIN
Without an anchor to hold you down to earth, you’ll b e so far out, the three astronauts walking on our global roof will seem locked in.
PROFESSOR
I’m wearing my tennies and ready to go for my daily jogging....clear my brain of all the cobwebs. ...insulated by an earth mother who ate chewed and spit me out all in one gulp.
LITTLE CHARLIE
You sound manic to my unprofessional ears. You need your medication, your pills .
PROFESSOR
She can have the house.....the pool two cars station wagon with four wheel drive, our little girl. I didn’t like the way she was growing up anyway. Just give me my freedom
LITTLE CHARLIE
Where will you find your niche? The librarian snitched on you.
PROFESSOR
The shady spinster Frigid veins of arctic cold and repression.
GROUP CAPTAIN
You were too familiar with the non readers...the underachievers of the library, trying to push their capabilities beyond a bar stool and a six pack.....
LITTLE CHARLIE.
Getting acquainted with their mothers...lusting after their non fiction titles.....They shot you down where you’re most vulnerable. In your vital parts!
PROFESSOR
Trumped up names dates and phone numbers....pass words.....Incidents never happened. Nevare!
But my record...E mail is clear and clean. I”m returning to the Department as Chair...on probation.
GROUP CAPTAIN
When the wasps of New England are out to capture a stud, they spin their strands of virgin steel until they nail you to the web and sink their fangs into your genitals.
LTTLE CHARLIE
......(beat) I’m sorry buddy. You’re not ready yet.
PROFESSOR
If I’m not ready now, I’ll never be. A man needs challenges in order to come true to himself. And I want out. I want to become. I don’t know about you, Little Charlie. You found yourself a home.
LITTLE CHARLIE
Maybe I don’t want to talk about myself, Doc....(beat) Maybe it means I’m getting better because I for one....I only can speak for myself....didn’t want to come back this morning....I didn’t want to leave my brother.....
PROFESSOR
.Good doctors you’re trying to find some hidden meaning in that admission. Why can’t you accept life rather than trying to perceive some deep insidious design.
LESION
Why Professor, it’s good to hear your New England intelligentsia again You’ve been rather quiet in group...during the time I’ve been making mental notes about yuur personality structure. We were beginning to program your next crackup..
GROUP CAPTAIN
I for one had a splendid weekend with my Daddy. We were standing in the first car during the Memorial Day parade. Daddy had his medals on, his chest out ,wearing his uniform proudly.
DR BUCKSHAW
Did you line up anything for work? You know you can’t stay on indefinitely
GROUP CAPTAIN
I’ve been talking it up with my old buddy buddies in the Big Apple. See if they could give their old “Thief of Bagdad”amigo a helping hand......
LITTLE CHARLIE
A hand? Or a finger?
DR SHINE
Anything specific?
GROUP CAPTAIN
Managing a tourist agency in the Virgin Islands......
MIKO
My mudder’s new boy friend offered me a role at the Dutchman. I envy the Group Captain’s chance at a discharge. I”ve had it up to here. You’re not curing anybody, you doctor frauds You need us to cure yourselves
DR LESION .
We try to help, mister. What else can we say? We”re only human. But let’s throw it out to the group. See if they think you’re ready for your discharge....
LITTLE CHARLIE
Miko, I’m your friend...only trying to help you go straight...fly right But if you come in after the eleven o’clock curfew again.....you were playing sneaky pete with the disc jockey and that doesn’t cast a straw in the wind for your discharge...y’ know what I’m saying.
MIKO
.Doesn’t cut the mustard with you? But the jockee was rag timing me and any who you got no say in the matter..All you want to do is dominate everybody like your brother says....”You nev er had any model but your old man and you try and be just like him. Bully everybody.....I’ve had it. I want out pronto!
DR LESION
How about the work program? Occupational therapy on the fifteenth floor? You think you could work out your problem before stepping out into the cosmos....
MIKO
Don’t give me that jive talk....my mudder says she’s coming ujp to sign me out any which way. AMA P.H.C. L.O.A.. I’m going to embrace life. You gotta work and make money. .
LITTLE CHARLIE
How much they paying you to start?
MIKO
Aaah Little Charlie is trying to dominate me...King of the coffee throne, Charlie. But you’re not bossing me around any more.
LITTLE CHARLIE
Who wants to boss you? Your mudder has her own gig. I’m trying to help you.. Make sure you keep your nose clean, stay out of trouble.
MIKO
You need money to live. I can’t live on rolling my own and Charlie Khan’s coffee all day..(beat beat) A buck seventy five to start. And if I keep my nose clean, he’ll raise me to two. A week’s vacation at the spa and fringe benefits....a 401 k.Y’didn’t know I knew,, did ya?
RAGTIME (Robby)
We’ll miss you. Miko. You’ve always had a good word for me. Always trying to help the other guy. Raise him up!
MIKO
Thanks for the good word, Ragtime.. But there are too many sadists around here....too many permanent residents.... .if you know what I’m saying. I don’t want to mention any names.........
An ash tray flies across the group...... . Little Charlie stumps out ......
RAGTIME (Robby)..
And that poor specimen of a human is going to try and make it on the outside.....Shooot Docs, Little Khan in remission.....
DR LESION
All the psychological tests...the inkblots...the vocational tests. Every bit of data analyzed in our data base.... the computer print outs and case conferences into genomic DNA RNA research... Markers proving you’re ready to face the cosmic obstacles..on the information highway.....
RAGTIME (Robby)
That’s pure ragtime.. You knows he’s not ready. to make it on his own..He needs help, lots of help. He’s scared stiff to go out there.
MIKO
The little fart almost done did ruin my sex life. He ought to have his weekend pass lifted ...and pout on restriction...He’s a killer bee....
Reenter Charlie Khan
LITTLE CHARLIE
Shut your cotton pickin’ trap.....but I got something on you, Miko.... Cutting M/s Molly’s fingernails.....they ought to throw the book at you.....
MIKO
Just a bag of noise, you little squirt of wind, making much ado about nothing. How the hell can anybody get better with guys like you around. You wanna lie in your sack and douse our dreams...,.come around ‘rousing us.”Get on your feet. Up and at em.” ....
PROFESSOR
Miko, you’re as decent human being and I wish you luck. I think you’ll make it as a fry cook. You know how to fry eggs over easy? Sunny side up? Over hard? A little basted, not much water?
MIKO
I’m learning to construct a cheese omelette like a tuna casserole..
Enter the psychologist, Mr. Franco, his beard, his clip board, his cigar...all the symbols of his searching identity....
DR LESION
Gentlemen my six months on the open ward are coming to a close....and althou the number of passes and propositions weren’t anything like it was on the closed ward, it was full of surprises. .
Not once did anyone conduct himself in conduct unbecoming a gentleman and a five day a week R and R.
PROFESSOR
Your monthly is nearing its end., Doc”
LITTLE CHARLIE
If they’re still bleeding, they’re still worth butchering.!
DR BUCKSHAW
What is woman coming to?....(beat beat) Mister Franco,formerly of Queens Borough College.
RAGTIME ( Robby)
Queens Borough College?
PROFESSOR
L.I.U ? Long Island University?
RAGGTIME (Robby)
Queens Borough? My God, Doc and good peoples people. Can’t you latch on to any head shrinkers from Vienna where this business of clearing cobwebs all began
MIKO
Is mister Franco a real doctor, Lesion? Conning us with another legal medical student....
DR BUCKSHAW
He’s doing his graduate work at Yukon , second year psychology.
.
MIKO
‘Nother fuzz with all that phallic hair. A student seeking us out as a mirror of his own folly. .
MR FRANCO
What I’m really after is steady play in ping pong ,gentlemen. Improve my game.
RAGTIME (Robby)
Beautiful serve, couch I mean coach. I saw it coming down the pike.
MIKO
My stomach aches, doc. I got this baby girl bouncing around like dancing snakes. And Lesion’s done nothing but ball at my expense. She’s a kid. What does she know? She’s trying to learn from us....
Enter Miko’s mother...”his mudder”
MIKO (on cue)
Mudder ,dear
MOTHER
(Thin gaunt woman) Hello sister Sadie, Sir Boo Boo........Sonny, are they paying you stud fees. What’s the deal? No one’s treating no one for free.....(beat) To x ray your life and examine your
brain, they ought to pay you as the consultant. Nothing comes cheap these days, especially experience and more so when you put it on Bill Gates’s mushrooming applications. It sparkles with blue chippy technology. You have your locker cleaned out. Mikey?.
My goody is waiting downstairs so we have to worry. I mean hurray, The Dutchman’s opening. So their numero dos fry cook is on the frying line.. I mean firing.. You can work out of the
hospita...eat your meals here. Schmooze with the docs and good peoples. See if they’re getting better and sack in before the Cinderella bewitching hour of eleven. Com’on kiddo.
LITTLE CHARLIE
(Blocking Miko’s way) He’s not going anywhere. He’s sick...he can’t sweat the small stuff.
MOTHER
You kiss my butt, small fry. Or I’ll punch your snout. He’s my son, coming from my pouch. ..not yours. We’re splitting out....Com’ on Sonny. I’m taking you to work. A man has got to make money......Voick, you dirty slaves,... Voick.. .
SCENE II
The Dutchman: waitresses, Grandma
SANDY (cockney drift)
These Yanks order a grilled cheese...eat half.... and then say they didn’t order it in the first place. I say “I’ll get you something else.” Theey say “they don’t want anything else” (beat beat)....See
those two well heeled chicks....they complained about having no cole slaw with their halibut...but they’re not supposed to have halibut with salad.....
GRANDMA
Or salad with halibut which ever way you want to look at it.. Maybe it doesn’t agree with their system, Sandy. Isn’t it all relative?.
SANDY
If they order fish and chips, it’s a fish of a different color. But they said they didn’t know.. That I should give them the benefit of the doubt because they’re senior citizens.....they’ll report my hard nosed stance to the manager.
GRANDMA
If only people peoples knew they would all be senior citizens someday .they would treat us as their older brothers and sisters......
SANDY
...Manager or no manager, I have my duties.... my responsibilities..
GRANDMA
You have to draw the line somewhere.....
SANDY
Ignorance of the menu dearies is no excuse.
GRANDMA
Why shouldn’t ignorance be an excuse? Maybe they’re telling the truth, Sandy. .
SANDY
If they wanted it free, I’d give it to them. Welfare checks being what they are..(beat beat) Y’know when I was running the five and ten, if the boss didn’t catch me, I’d always give them a free show. That’s my nature. I can’t exploit anybody when they’re old and cold.
GRANDMA
If they want cole slaw, they can go elsewhere. At the price they’re paying.
SANDY
If they wanted their food free, all they had to do is speak up and Sandy would give it them. You know me dearie...wouldn’t I? With welfare being what it is. .I now the struggle of our senior citizens. I’m always willing to help out with a free meal and a helping hand. No mere finger from me, I go all the way when I go.
GRANDMA
They don’t have to lie to admit they’re hungry and broke. Poverty is good to a point.....but I had enough of it...begging for cole slaw. Have they no pride in their aging? .
SANDY
That’s what I say, dearies. Where’s their pride today?
Enter manager,....... Farnham, a Dutchman fixture
MANAGER
I don’t care if they let the patients go home, on weekend passes for trick or treat., The Group Captain and his mother, Grandma ,know the score.. They’re grownups, not louts on lolly pops of door to door.....what business do they have competing with the neighborhood kids.... next door and across the street predators for gum candy and apples...
FARNHAM
I’m playing out the role of Miko’s patient escort. Not a white coated shrink behind his patient staff government.
MANAGER
A witch doctor named Buckshaw salivated his pitch here.... and we bought into the program. Why not....”ain’t the Dutchman an integral part of the community....neighbors for a strong get well rehabilitation.
FARNHAM
It’s all part of the therapy...making the out patients function within reality helps them get better. Playing out their lives on a more realistic stage......
MANAGER
Our children need protection from the werewolves and pariahs of society. Hire Miko Farnham
their breathren to wrap cellophane over the apples. It’s the least I can do in making a living for my selfish ego....(beat beat)...to support them into finding themselves..
In Holland’s Dutchman trick or treat is akin to tiptoing thru the tulips. The Gestapo is gavolt . Reincarnated in Philadelphia, sticking razor blades. in the kids “apples..
FARNHAM
The affluent apple, dressed up in cellophane. Trick or treat anyone?
SANDY
Come come boys. No squabbling here in the New World. It’s not like the Old Country, getting off the boat, you wore your sideburns short. This is the land of the long sideburn..And we must give our patrons the benefit of the doubt. (handing a menu to Farnham)
FARNHAM
New menus.....faancy faancy....salads down a dime......steak sandwiches two and a quarter.....corned beef a buck and a quarter....(beat beat) Y’ sure it’s pure unadulterated corn beef onChicago rye with seeds
MANAGER
I pass thru Holland but really I’m from Chiano. Twenty six kilos from Napoli. Married a poor but good Italian girl and lived with my momma and sister. Simple but good life. No money but lots of bambinos flowers and musica. Come Friday night, the batches hung around Al”s Avenue H
candy store. .a waiting and a lusting. Come Sunday the girls all wiggling like fishing worms but not angling too near the hook....sashshaying before our lecherous eyes.
FARNHAM
Hooked broiled and fried in fat
MANAGER
What can I do? Any man do? My weakness is her strength. She lives in my imagination.,dwelling there for life, rent free.
FARNHAM
Assking a buck and a quarter for corned beef without any guarantee of being bathed in Chicago ry with seeds.. Isn’t that larceny? A seafood cocktail the size of my bathtub isn’t worth the price of a battleship if it’s imitation seafood. Right, signor?.
MANAGER
But we. manage to keep in line with the gross national product .Our green salads, your mother’s favorite garden variety with bleu cheese dressing...., we stay below the line costs.
FARNHAM
But cheese omelettes up a buck five. Eggs seventy five cents. Halibut steak a buck seventy five Halibut chips a buck five....(beat beat) And yet the fish and chips across from Sam’s Hughes–-a
for rent sign across the front door– .a lovely menu...best in the nest...may I keep it as a souvenir..sir?
MANAGER
We have only fifty. Five 0.
FARNHAM
Your autograph. An immortal signature to treasure forever and ever. .
MANAGER
.I’m sorry but our girls come first. In service training
.
SANDY
I”m glad I count for something more than a unit on a balance sheet.
MANAGER
You do you do.. We love our girls. We’re not out to do you in.
FARNHAM
You do you do We love our girls....(mimicing) Sounds like a line out of Miss Jean Brodie’s
“Prime”....”my girls are the plume de plume” and you know what happened to her. She got the
shafterooney right from one of her girls.. Caveat emptor,signor!
Customer paying his tab, leaves his newspaper......Farnham picks it up.......”Girls admit trick or treat hoax....” a trumped up humping.
SANDY
I’m glad I’m not traipsing thru the tulips, believing all that con and honey. You’re a bull thrower.
FARNHAM
That’s the American way....maybe not the American Legion way at Adelphi Amity post 791, Bay Ridge’s Colonial Road..........Hinsch’s confectionery......,
MANAGER
“Plume de plume”. She’s one of my girls you’re corrupting ,mister..
Enter diminutive Japanese waitress...Queenie Hayakashi
QUEENIE
You American stinko...no tipperoo, always asking for seconds...(beat beat) Me no quit..You fire......
MANAGER
Never Queenie, never....I’m your amigo....your confidante
.
QUEENIE
Me no geisha girl.......you two faced.....bomb us at Hiroshima. ...remember” Hiroshima mon amour”
MANAGER
Queenie, remember Pearl Harbor. Your people peoples started something, they couldn’t finish.. .The Yanks were at American legion installation of offices that Sunday at Adelphi,.off Colonial Road.. Your Sun God wouldn’t like that......
QUEENIE
Me fired?
MANAGER
You want me to fire you?
QUEENIE
Customers bad manners....no like service. I no like customers.
MANAGER
ueenie, you need water to douse your Vict Cong flame throwers road side bombs suicidal Moslems sacrificing their souls in the name of Ben Laden”s “Allah” Right or wrong, he’s always right like our customers.
QUEENIE
(Taking off her cap and apron) I no like your piped music Your menu. Queenie fired?
MANAGER
Why porque why Queenie? We adore you. Your small feet, your tiny hands Your. our ”Madame Butterfly”
QUEENIE
Customer always impatient. Always.. Ill tempered. Always in a hurray .hurray. . Not like Queeni’s Kenny. Selfless quiet mind. Well groomed how you say a fashion plate. Even if we talk peace at White House and bomb Pearl Harbor.
MANAGER.
Queenie, we simplified menu....no more choices. Baked potato with sour cream unless on dinner. No more a la carte. Easy cheesey Queenie (beginning to mimic her)
QUEENIE
(stomping on menu) Your Queenie fired?
MANAGER
(Beat beat) A Japanese spy in our” mist”....”I quit. You fire .....”
QUEENIE
Back to Osaku, Tokyo, Johnson City geisha girl. Much superior to serve Emperor Hirohito long order than serve hamburger on short. Always burger (throws down cap, stomps on apron) Pooh on burger. ,Pooh on American bliss....
SCENE III
Case conference
DR BUCKSHAW
Doctors psychologists “to be or not to be” that is the question. Should the Group Captain “Howie” be terminated ...given his marching orders....an escape route from Group After ten days of rest and recreation, he wants out. His discharge..
MISTER FRANCO
(Feminine pitch) I still have more tests to give.....neurology is still waiting on the brain scan.....we’re running late.
DR BUCKSHAW
(methodically checking off his patients for his bragging rights) He’s using this ward as his R&R...but he hasn’t put in his time in Iraq... Baghdad ‘s‘ inner city recognizing the Shites from
from the Sunnis...and there are the Kurds from the North..... South Vietnamese from the Viet Cong in the colors of North Vietnam.....”Miss Saigon” take off those blinders....friend and foe are Cain and Abel twin like siblings..... ..
M/s MOLLY
Six pack Jockee got in under the wire night before last....
DR BUCKSHAW
What’s his story?
M/s MOLLY
Says he wasn’t ready for the outside. That we discharged him prematurely.
DR BUCKSHAW
Discharged him prematurely? He’s Lesion’s patient.,isn’t he?
LESION
He had a job. His wife was willing to share everything like they were in some same sex conjugal bliss. Everything but her bed. ..... We could use that extra bed. The vets are clamoring at admissions, banging down the doors with Crawford Texas nightmares.
SHINE
Problems, problems. Oh for some four wall racquetball at the ‘Y’.. .
DR BUCKSHAW
Why’s the Group Captain on the closed ward? Someone step up to the plate...he belongs to someone.
LESION
My judgment call.....what the friggen hell......He promises to stay sober But he came back, sneaking a pint into the shower stalls......(mimicing) “I need my snake juice for confidence before I crawl out of here and face the battle outside.....”
SHINE
You smart ass intern.
DR BUCKSHAW
You couldn’t prove it by me...both of you klutzes.,,,,,
LESION
I admit it. Why not? The Group Captain’s wits sharpened by two wars the Korean ambush... Bush’s folly “weapons of mass destruction” bs”ing the masses, never cleaning out an M1 himself.....Hells bells when he says he’s going down for chocolate milk, how can you believe
him. Read up “The pathology of a chronic liar” delusions of grandeur, compounded by an aging Rummy ousted by a forced retirement ,reminiscing on a California Yucca Valley porch.Post 9/11 twin towers ambush.... ....
SHINE
Would you hire a two dollar an hour mechanic on a four thousand transmission? We’re all puppy dogs....all of us on the gravy train.. Otherwise we’d all be hanging our shingles. In private practice, justifying our existence,
DR FEE FEE
I have a feeling a gestalt of paranoia is playing out.....some ones sensibility is in question......their professionalism wounded , their life in a defensive mode. .
BUCKSHAW
We’re acting like dirty old men, out for a bit of poontang. ....
LESION
I beg your pardon, Buckshaw. Being ward chief says something for your role. M/s Molly and myself are not scratching for your poontang. A piece of ass by any other Lady Chatterly/s caretaker..
M/s MOLLY
I’m sure an anti- feminine racial innuendo wasn’t served , Doctor Buckshaw. But we’re living in demoniac times and a Freudian slip may mean more than psychopathology of everyday life....
BUCKSHAW
I apologize ladies. As a graduate of an accredited medical school, I lost my cool. But with Ragtime going off electric shock. No consent papers yet. .how much stress can the ward chief hack....it’s too much
DR FEE FEE
We all ought to hide our heads in shame. We’re supposed to rise above the pettiness that flogs our patients....(bear beat) Can any one explain why the brag sheet transferred a fifty I.Q to my group therapy? My soul is gnarled with dingalings....
LESION
You want a .twenty two year out of the **** Brigade from Fort Bragg, back from Baghdad.. He’s hot for a hippo..
SHINE
One of ours?. A funky who got busted by civilian life ?
LESION
His wife is expecting. She tried to have him committed.
BUCKSHAW
Where’s the hippo?
LESION
At the dog pound.. The hippo was eating them out of house and home....a ton of vegetables a bushel of hay and five chickens, .per diem.
M/s MOLLY
His wife thought she needed a nursery crib or a hi chair.
SHINE
A rolling hippo gathers no moss.....
LESION
Don’t throw stones at glass hippos.
BUCKSHAW
When the Group captain asks how’s my love life, I’ll tell him I left my wife for a hippo.
DR FEE FEE
Who’s got time to kibbutz a hippo who eats like an Army Division.?
LESION
Can you blame his hippy wife?
SHINE
The hippos’?
LESION
No way. Her expecting and him out of work.
BUCKSHAW
What motivated him.....dastardly!
LESION
He paid up front four hundred at an as is auction .His gears expecting to trade the hippo at a swap meet.. But the hippo wasn’t hip and ate him out of a thousand dollars worth of grub.
M/s MOLLY
He sounds like beautiful people’s people. But our thrust is our own people patients.. Maybe they don’t have a hip life style . But they got groovy fantasies to thread..the needle.
.
DR FEE FEE
They’re into their own swindle of a hip .gig..
.
BUCKSHAW
And so are we, Fee Fee..
DR FEE FEE
Amen! Amen!
ACT II
Hospital. Open ward closed....
.N/s Molly opens the doors, the Group Captain comes in stage left. Carrying a corded valise, holding a fifth.,he drops it ,throwing his arms around M/s Molly.......
GROUP CAPTAIN
What the hell is going on around here. Locked doors on an open ward?.How are you, M/s Molly?
M/s MOLLY
Little Charlie is acting belligerent again . that mister Franco isn’t where it is as head nurse...
Incompetent as teats on a boor’s ass.. Doesn’t have the talent to rap with mental patients..Talks down to them and treats them as second class citizens..
GROUP CAPTAIN
Charlie will never learn. You can’t beat City Hall. You have to play ball with the system, M/s Molly
..
M/s MOLLY
Buckshaw thinks Charles’ been here too long.....ready for a discharge. He’s talking it up with Dr. Lesion.
GROUP CAPTAIN
Buckshaw knocked himself out ..Tired of hearing Charlie spill his spleen., eat his heart out.. He’s been in and out of the ward for five years. And nobody seems to have helped him.
M/s MOLLY
To be honest with you, Howie. As I see it he’s getting worse instead of better..
GROUP CAPTAIN
They don’t know how to treat him. . He needs special care. You can’t hold his limp wrist, feel his beating pulse...”how’s it going today, Charlie.. What’s the good word? Making any money in the market?.....But how about yourself M/s? You’re a fine figure of a woman....if I was a younger man...how’s things at home...in the bedroom?
M/s MOLLY
Mah honeys’ working overtime on the assembly line, carting them ammunition belts for the boys on the Bagdad firing line...Mekong Delta a quarter of a century earlier. He ain’t got time hardly for his sweetie and mommy anymore. How ah could use some of his sure all cathartic..
GROUP CAPTAIN
Like your pappy used to spoil with........
M/s MOLLY
Who couldn’t use a lot of hugging....those big muscular arms wrapped around my bosum. It seems mah daddy was one who liked to . But mah husband just wants to work and sing “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition”
GROUP CAPTAIN
If you were my woman, M/S your ammunition would swoosh my gun
M/s MOLLY
Praise the Lord, there’s still one man left on the ward.
GROUP CAPTAIN
It all lies in the physical. They brain wash the fellows into thinking it all lies with your thoughts. .Jesus, Molly. May I address you without your title....if we could market..what you got in your
libido.you and I could barter for a seat on the stock exchange like Rubert Murdoch wheeling dealing with the controlling family in Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal......we’d divvy up fifty fifty- equal partners. In our joint ventures...not unlike his Iris Murdoch back at Oxford..
M/s MOLLY
.Ouch, you’re squeezing like a healthy man, Howie....
GROUP CAPTAIN.
I am healthy, feel fit as a fiddle.
M/s MOLLY
Why’d you come back, Howie? Things hard on the outside?
GROUP CAPTAIN
You want to know the truth, the real truth.? I was lonesome for the boys. Farnham, Little Charlie,
Ragtime.....yourself, playing pinochle...breaking bread together, rag timing it.. .Jesus, it’s lonely out there. No one to talk to. Even if you get a good sqooshing on the run. It doesn’t pay when you can be with the boys and have all your personal needs taken care of....teeth eyes sinuses. You can’t beat the system, Molly.
M/s MOLLY
Com on back, Howie. All the boys are in the play room........
Exit Molly sashaying across the ward .....Ping pong pool table to the right. Four patients ,playing cards...
..
RAGTIME (Robby)
My God, he’s back The Group Captain, I can’t believe it.
LITTLE CHARLIE .
If you’re here to stay, you’ll have to get a new coffee cup.
Ad libbing...... shaking hands horsing around
.
GROUP CAPTAIN
It’s good to be back, fellows......You don’t know how good it is, knowing someone cares about you..That outside- it’s a jungle. And cold...it’s freezing out there.....You little bastard, giving my cup away .My name on it and all.
LITTLE CHARLIE
You said when Lesion discharged you, ,you were never coming back.....it was a bitchin’ cup.
GROUP CAPTAIN
And Ragtime, you old bastard, how are ya buddy. I was under the impression God willing, you’d make it.. You’d be out there trying to find a woman and reinvent yourself in no time flat.
RAGTIME (Robby)
(beefing) I tried selling brushes .but it was quite a let down after selling nucleur reactors. Flying from London to the new nations in Africa. . I was just fed up.....Y’ know Cap the fiancee took off for Bible school in Mississippi leaving me without a purty penny.. Ah’m waxing the candle at both ends like I was at the time of the breakdown....
GROUP CAPTAIN
Don’t you go self pitying yourself, Ragtime. You’re good looking, got something on the ball a lot of us jokers don’t have., You’re college educated., a dandy as a dresser. Shooot if Lesion gave you a three day pass to come back in. Everything takes time. This therapy takes years. I was watching “Freud” on the telly...and you know something gang, Freud himself was in the bag ovr his mother He had the hots for her.. And the revelation and all came to him in a dream...didn’t his wife’s sister live with them most of her life.....
.
LITTLE CHARLIE
How about you, How? What’s your mixed up bag? Your love nest?
RAGTIME (Robby)
You trying to get back in, Howie? Someone’s got your bed. A guy they brought up from the closed ward....Sam the man. A clean cut guy..Just a little off his patch, living in his own garden.
But a real nice Joe. You’d like him.. .,even if he’s way out....coochey coochey coo.
GROUP CAPTAIN
(placing his arms around the card players.)....The wife is filing for divorce, the boys are employed in a gainful occupation by Uncle Sam. I got nothing to do. And you know me fellows, got to keep busy with responsibility or else I’d go crazy sitting around, waiting for an opportunity.
SIX PACK ( “JOCKEE” after the sun goes down)
What about that deal you told us about...opening up a tourist agency in the Virgin Islands. You were as hot as a poker rod—didja get drunk or something.
GROUP CAPTAIN
Foul up, Six Pack? Putting words in my mouth...y’know better than that.,.With your old dad .Jeez I couild deliver telephone directories.,sell newspapers, the new I phone whatever., sell my time as a para at the high school library.....Deliver mail forthe p.o....a soda jerk into malted milks and ice cream sodas. Throw out balls to the youngsters during their recess.
Any gainful love of labor where I could be of service, proving myself useful.. Not just putting in time, punching the clock....watching the minute hand sweeping around the dial.. But a job where I could count for some thing. ...and above all be myself.
SIX PACK
That’s Utopia, Howie.....take it from me, I used to sell .magazines for veteran organizations..To get a subscription I had to lie like I was born into the pitch....”Please madam lady doll face are you the woman of the house..? I just want to take a moment of your time for our prize contest.. You get an eight by ten picture of yourself and an all paid vacation to the White House to shake the hand of the most recent occupant of the Oval Office....the sinewy former Congressman who cut his teeth on hissing Alger....the grocer’s boy who came close once But then had the imagination to shake off his shrewd choice of running mates.
RAGTIME (Robby)
But the Group Captain is back...our parliamentarian Our rules maker.. Whether he’s here for
three days or for good, the main thing he’s here in the flesh.,,,Sock it to em baby.’
LITTLE CHARLIE
(into his* post hospitalization cure ) When you got your *P H Cyou told us you were going out to Denver for a rest. A chance to relax...changing your scene.. What happened to make you want to come back in?
GROUP CAPTAIN
I was thinking of reenlisting in the Air Force when those shorty Fu Manchus nabbed our gunboat in international waters.....like post 9/11 attack on the Pentagon......volunteer for recall . Swoop and swish over North Africa ...thinking good of myself once again.
SIX PACK
Your imagination got the better of you. It”s all one helluva bowl of chicken soup. And all we are but bits and pitselas of of noodles....not daring to risk becoming part of a tuna casserole.
GROUP CAPTAIN
You can’t sit here all your life, ,playing pinochle, Six Pack.. You got to try and get your wings on the outside. That’s where the action is.
SIX PACK
Let my wife and honey do that .She’s coming up today to take me home for the weekend to see my kids and old man. She says she’d like changing places with me.. She would, she really would..
No rag timing. But I got things on my mind for Miko.
GROUP CAPTAIN
How’s Miko getting along? Forty one year old baby tied to the umbilical cords of his mother and her four husbands...a Tommy Manvile femme in disguise. Poor kid, never having a father to model himself after.
LITTLE CHARLIE
Last we knew he and the disc jockey were tying one on at the hotel. Buckshaw was writing him up on an A M A, sending the kid out into the cruel cold cosmos.
GROUP CAPTAIN
The disc jockey still got a handle on all that money in the hospital? He doesn’t rap with you weirdos, does he?
RAGTIME (Robby)
He’s the Howard Hughes of the ward.. The mystery man. His fingers are in the paper route the botanical gardens and building model ships which he sells to the highest bidder in a closed bid auction..
LTTLE CHARLIE
He knows where the action is...the little crap shooter.. .
GROUP CAPTAIN
Is Boo Boo and Sister Sadie still making the ward?
RAGTIME (Robby)
Boo Boo baby was finally discharged.. He figured he wasn’t ready but Buckshaw and Lesion were on the same page...couldn’t do anything more for him. He was up tight too long.
LITTLE CHARLIE
Sister Sadie’s still; hanging in there. He’s heard they’re looking for hairdressers full or part time around the Village Green.. So he’s fixing himself up as a fright to scare the owner into putting him on payroll
.
GROUP CAPTAIN
And Sonny? What of him? Ragtime, is he still swearing off girls? I tried to fix him up with Castro from the Chapel apartments.. She had her own boudoir., Jeesus, you should have seen his knees tremble......you’d think I was going to butcher him..
LITTLE CHARLIE
If they still bleeding, they’re still worth butchering.
Enter M/s Molly....
M/s MOLLY
We’re all so happy to see you back, knowing you’re happy to be back.
G ROUP CAPTAIN
The fellows helped me with my treatment,. I can help them with theirs.
LITTLE CHARLIE
Shooot...you just can’t there and bullshit us guys. You came back because you got rid of all your money. Got good and tanked up like the bummer you are......
GROUP CAPTAIN
I refuse to use any four letter words in an argument with you, Charlie. If you’re not happy with
me, Charlie. You’re not happy with my vibes.... bring some good cheer into the ward, then I can always go elsewhere. I’ m not that hard up that I have to stay with guys, who don’t. want me sharing their space..... I may not be able to get back with my wife....but I always can find a partner..
RAGTIME (Robby)
A hand is always as good as a partner.
LITTLE CHARLIE
God damn it Don’t be so sensitive. You could at least give your buddies the truth about your
situation. Why did you come back? We stood by you when you left. We never tried to shoot you down.
GROUP CAPTAIN
I know when I’m not wanted ,,,,you’re giving me the finger, the old shafterooney..I got mine you get yours...That’s your problem, Charles.. You have to live with it. I worked mine out...I’m ready to accept any cold water on a motion to take me back into the government. If the doctors see eye to eye...
LITTLE CHARLIE
Don’t make me look like the heavy. You’re the one who ignored us after we tried to have you smoke the peace pipe with Lesion..Why I ought to.........
Rushes toward him....Ragtime intervenes..
GROUP CAPTAIN
Let him go, let him go. If he wants to.......put up your mitts, Little Charlie.
RAGTIME (Robby)
Man, you chicks ought to cool it.
LITTLE CHARLIE
Twenty five bucks says you’re a coward, Group Captain. No balls
GROUP CAPTAIN
You should talk...”you got nothin’ wrong with you except shrapnel around your neck and shoulders.” If it’s all a neurological problem, why don’t they treat you on medicine?.:
”
LITTLE CHARLIE
Because they got no beds there, that’s why. The only place with bed s is psychiatry.
RAGTIME (Robby)
Ragtime! on both of you. . .
LITTLE CHARLIE
Lemme at him. The lying cur of a dog.
RAGTIME(Robby)
You think black boy, I’m gonna let you use up all that energy in a brawl when we can use it for demonstrations. You’re out of your mind ...
LITLE CHARLIE
Why you Caucasian bastard, injecting racism on an open ward..
M/s MOLLY
I treated all sorts of mental diseases. fetishes and horse radishes. .But you rabble with your swimming tongues, becoming uncolored color blind....
RAGTIME (Robby)
I chilled many melons Charlie, for saying less.,
LITTLE CHARLIE
I’m pitching for the Group Captain, Ragtime. I’m not wanting to mess with you. But if you start
in on me, I’m gonna deck you..... and I don’t care what color your civil rights are.
M/s MOLLY
Can’t we have a moment’s peace anymore, where we could....(takes out her Bible of therapeutic axioms)..........there is a time.in childhood..when the discovery of life and earth are breathtakingly beautiful and exciting. Just to see and smell and feel.....with the special awareness children have...is to feel truly alive.....One wonders why adults are so obliviousThe magic becomes blurred for most adults because of irrevocable losses that demand resignation even if there is no understanding......
RAGTIME (Robby) .
It’s only words. Just words. And if Charlie wants some of the action, I’ll slice.....(snaps open a pen knife)
GROUP CAPTAIN
Where the hell is Farnham? Did Leon get discharged?
M/s MOLLY
( reading her Bible....) When you first came to our house,things were so blurry and
I resented. your lack of unhappiness. . So there we were, but I had lots more to learn.,
I learned some of it and then one day came the realization that if I went to you, you would be there. And you were waiting...and you took me to your magic kingdom where there is all of that lost beauty and the super awareness with which to experience it.
So a very old and ugly world became as lovely and young as you are, my darling....
LITTLE CHARLIE
Look at that blade.....
RAGTIME (Robby)
I’m gonna cut you apart into little bits of raisins.....
M/s MOLLY
.that’s what you gave me. And I gave you some flowers, a poem and a picture....and my love. If I could I’d give you all the things I love. A mountain wrapped in mist and sunlight..The sound of rain falling on the ground at night. And the smell of a field on a hot day.....
LITTLE CHARLIE
Let me go. Let me go.
RAGTIME (ROBBY)
He doesn’t know what it is to take your health for granted....lemme at him
M/s MOLLY
Bbut I know you have all you need. You love. And you are loved. You are your father’s son.
)
GROUP CAPTAIN
I’m cuttin’ out for Farnham’s apartment. I don’t see how the hell any of you can get better.,I .....
M/s MOLLY
...I’m sorry, I missed you yesterday. You waited, but not long enough. I got there but not soon enough.......
GROUP CAPTAIN
Lemme out ......some peace of mind and serenity from all this loopy poo stress.
.
M/s MOLLY
so happy birthday, my love. May you live forever and have a million birthdays. And I hope your forever will be as beautiful as the happiest day you’ve ever known.....
SCENE IV
Professor and the long legged Kentuckian in bed,, wrapped in blankets.
KENTUCKY
God, if only your name was Leon. Leon Farnham,Professor.. Now there was material for your college..He could do it all in spades. And in hearts, too....in the schoolyard on Saint Valentine’s Day, he became my first crush....we corresponded for years...and when I came east to research my dissertation, he began to cut a figure in the local parish like Burt:Lancaster’s “Elmer Gantry”......Spreading the faith and winning an international reputation...
PROFESSOR
But what about the gestalt. The cumulative clinching effect Couldn’t he win your woo while cutting it back home?..
KENTUCKY
He tried...we tried. Mah daddy wanted it so bad...but he carried on with another who flew in his flock Until he grounded her.....in his nest
PROFESSOR
I’m sorry. I didn’t know.
KENTUCKY
I flew home......and we had our scene. Nothing like Rhett and Scarlet O’Hara., I tell you no lies.
PROFESSOR
How many young women would pay that price for a P H D ?
KENTUCKY
I wanted the M R S so bad., . But what virgin girl from the deep South wouldn’t .He’s divorced now. A pappy of two boys. Cute tykes who’s he trying to muzzle like he did with me, pretending all the time he was in love..... passionate guilt free love.Professor..
PROFESSOR
That’s what he gets. for trying to spread the faith from a distance...instead of keeping his own sheets clean at home.
KENTUCKY
......ah like sharing the sheets with you, Professor.....
PROFESSOR
The feeling is mutual, Kentucky...got the same interests of our students at hand...their welfare ...the college’s coefficient of expansion.... ........Kentucky, lemme make an honest woman out of you. Forget the Leons of the cosmos. Devote your fully developed talents to us.
KENTUCKY
What about my studs......our students, Professor. You always said they came first. Why ah remember when I came to your office after my first lecture,..you said “our students come first always regardless nevertheless
PROFESSOR
A man grows and develops.. He evolves like Darwin’s lung fish crawling out of the wash unto the beaches of Indonesia.millenniums ago....At the moment we were fated , I was going thru my publish or perish , interested only in my survival...my dissertation. My P H D....Can you blame me, dear. Raised in the 20th century before 9/11. ....out for you know who...
KENTUCKY
You are a devoted teacher, Professor. Nobody who has audited your classes can deny that. You are always in motion. The perspiration dripping from your Adonis brow as you stretch for your far reaching insights.. The rumor off the faculty lounge is that’s how you met your wife....she was a scrub.....
PROFESSOR
Sitting in the first row on the aisle near the blackboard. A bead of sweat....a sweaty bead, at that..... plumped on her proboscis....... . . .
revised.. pages 1-35 ,,,,,,.pages 35-76 Welcomevillage.com//adler.html .........June 28,2007
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