 HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE 
by 
Kurt Vonnegut 
ACT ONE 
SCENE ONE 
SILENCE. Pitch blackness. Animal eyes begin to glow in the 
darkness. Sounds of the jungle climax in animals fighting. 
A SINGER is heard singing the first bars of "All God's 
Chillun Got Shoes." HAROLD, LOOSELEAF, PENELOPE, and WOODLY 
stand in a row in the darkness, facing the audience. They 
are motionless. A city skyline in the early evening 
materializes outside the windows. 
The lights come up on the living room of a rich man's 
apartment, which is densely furnished with trophies of hunts 
and wars. There is a front door, a door to the master 
bedroom suite, and a corridor leading to other bedrooms, the 
kitchen and so on. 
PENELOPE 
How do you do. My name is Penelope 
Ryan. This is a simple-minded play 
about men who enjoy killing--and 
those who don't. 
HAROLD 
I am Harold Ryan, her husband. I 
have killed perhaps two hundred men 
in wars of various sorts--as a 
professional soldier. I have 
killed thousands of other animals 

 as well--for sport. 
WOODLY 
I am Dr. Norbert Woodly--a 
physician, a healer. I find it 
disgusting and frightening that a 
killer should be a respected member 
of society. Gentleness must 
replace violence everywhere, or we 
are doomed. 
PENELOPE 
(to LOOSELEAF) 
Would you like to say something 
about killing, Colonel? 
LOOSELEAF 
(embarrassed) 
Jesus--I dunno. You know. What 
the heck. Who knows? 
PENELOPE 
Colonel Harper, retired now, 
dropped an atom bomb on Nagasaki 
during the Second World War, 
killing seventy-four thousand 
people in a flash. 
LOOSELEAF 
I dunno, boy. 
PENELOPE 
You don't know? 
LOOSELEAF 
It was a bitch. 
PENELOPE 
Thank you. 
(to all) 
You can leave now. We'll begin. 
WOODLY 
(to the audience, 
making a peace sign) 

 Peace! 
All but PENELOPE exit. 
PENELOPE 
(to the audience) 
This is a tragedy. When it's done, 
my face will be as white as the 
snows of Kilimanjaro. 
(hyena laughs) 
My husband, who kills so much, has 
been missing for eight years. He 
disappeared in a light plane over 
the Amazon Rain Forest, where he 
hoped to find diamonds as big as 
cantaloupes. His pilot was Colonel 
Looseleaf Harper, who dropped the 
bomb on Nagasaki. 
(hyena laughs) 
I should explain the doorbells in 
this apartment. They were built by 
Abercrombie and Fitch. They are 
actual recordings of animal cries. 
The back doorbell is a hyena, which 
you've just heard. The front 
doorbell is a lion's roar. 
(to the wings) 
Would you let them hear it please? 
(lion roars) 
Thank you. 
PAUL, her twelve-year-old son, enters from corridor, a 
sensitive, neatly dressed little rich boys. 
PENELOPE 
And this is my son, Paul. He was 
only four years old when his father 
disappeared. 
PAUL 
(radiantly, sappily) 
He's coming back, Mom! He's the 
bravest, most wonderful man who 
ever lived. 

 PENELOPE 
(to audience) 
I told you this was a simple-minded 
play. 
PAUL 
Maybe he'll come back tonight! 
It's his birthday. 
PENELOPE 
I know. 
PAUL 
Stay home tonight! 
PENELOPE 
(ruefully, for they 
have been over this before) 
Oh, Paul-- 
PAUL 
You're married! You've already got 
a husband! 
PENELOPE 
He's a ghost! 
PAUL 
He's alive! 
PENELOPE 
Not even Mutual of Omaha thinks so 
anymore. 
PAUL 
If you have to go out with some 
guy--can't he be more like Dad? 
(sick) 
Herb Shuttle and Norbert Woodly-- 
can't you do better than those two 
freaks? 
PENELOPE 
(resentfully) 

 Thank you, kind sir. 
PAUL 
A vacuum cleaner salesman and a 
fairy doctor. 
PENELOPE 
A what kind of doctor? 
PAUL 
A fairy--a queer. Everybody in the 
building knows he's a queer. 
PENELOPE 
(knowing better) 
That's an interesting piece of news. 
PAUL 
You're the only woman he ever took 
out. 
PENELOPE 
Not true. 
PAUL 
Still lives with his mother. 
PENELOPE 
You know she has no feet! You want 
him to abandon his mother, who has 
no husband, who has no money of her 
own, who has no feet? 
PAUL 
How did she lose her feet? 
PENELOPE 
In a railroad accident many years ago. 
PAUL 
I was afraid to ask. 
PENELOPE 
Norbert was just beginning practice. 
A real man would have sold her to a 

 catfood company, I suppose. As far 
as that goes, J. Edgar Hoover still 
lives with his mother. 
PAUL 
I didn't know that. 
PENELOPE 
A lot of people don't. 
PAUL 
J. Edgar Hoover plays sports. 
PENELOPE 
I don't really know. 
PAUL 
To only exercise Dr. Woodly ever 
gets is playing the violin and 
making that stupid peace sign. 
(makes the peace sign 
and says the word effeminately) 
Peace. Peace. Peace, everybody. 
Lion doorbell roars. 
PENELOPE 
(cringing) 
I hate that thing. 
PAUL 
It's beautiful. 
He goes to door, admits WOODLY, whom he loathes openly. 
WOODLY 
(wearing street 
clothes, carrying a 
rolled-up poster 
under his arm) 
Peace, everybody--Paul, Penelope. 
PAUL 
You're taking Mom out tonight? 

 WOODLY 
(to PENELOPE) 
You're going out? 
PENELOPE 
Herb Shuttle is taking me to a fight. 
WOODLY 
Take plenty of cigars. 
PENELOPE 
(an apology, secret 
from PAUL) 
We made the date three months ago. 
WOODLY 
I must take you to an emergency 
ward sometime--on a Saturday night. 
That's also fun. I came to see 
Selma, as a matter of fact. 
PENELOPE 
She quit this afternoon. 
PAUL 
We don't have a maid any more. 
WOODLY 
Oh? 
PENELOPE 
The animals made her sneeze and cry 
too much. 
WOODLY 
I'm glad somebody finally cried. 
Every time I come in here and see 
all this unnecessary death, I want 
to cry. 
(winking at PAUL, 
acknowledging PAUL's 
low opinion of him) 
I don't cry, of course. Not manly, 
you know. Did she try antihistamines? 

 PENELOPE 
They made her so sleepy she 
couldn't work. 
WOODLY 
Throw out all this junk. Burn it! 
This room crawls with tropical 
disease. 
PAUL 
Everything stays as it is! 
WOODLY 
A monument to a man who thought 
that what the world needed most was 
more rhinoceros meat. 
PAUL 
(hotly) 
My father! 
WOODLY 
I apologize. But you didn't know 
him, and neither did I. How's your 
asthma? 
PAUL 
Don't worry about it. 
WOODLY 
How's the fungus around your 
thumbnail? 
PAUL 
(concealing the thumb) 
It's fine! 
WOODLY 
It's jungle rot! This room is 
making everybody sick! This is 
your family doctor speaking now. 
(unrolling the poster) 
Here--I brought you something else 
to hang on your wall, for the sake 
of variety. 

 PENELOPE 
(reading) 
"War is not healthy for children 
and other living things." How lovely. 
WOODLY 
No doubt Paul thinks it stinks. 
Lion doorbell roars. 
WOODLY 
I hate that thing. 
PAUL 
(going to the door) 
Keeps fairies away! 
He admits HERB SHUTTLE, who carries an Electrolux vacuum 
cleaner. 
SHUTTLE 
(to PAUL 
affectionately, 
touching him) 
Hi kid. 
(seeing WOODLY) 
Would you look what the car dragged 
in. 
WOODLY 
I'm glad you brought your vacuum 
cleaner. 
SHUTTLE 
Is that a fact? 
WOODLY 
That maid just quit. The place is 
a mess. You can start in the 
master bedroom. 
PENELOPE 
Please-- 

 SHUTTLE 
He's not anybody to tell somebody 
else what to do in a master bedroom. 
PENELOPE 
I'll get ready, Herb. I didn't 
expect you this soon. 
(to all) 
Please--won't everybody be nice to 
everybody else while I'm gone? 
All freeze, except for PENELOPE, who comes forward to 
address the audience. Lights on set fade as spotlight comes 
on. 
PENELOPE 
Most men shunned me--even when I 
nearly swooned for want of love. I 
might as well have been girdled in 
a chastity belt. My chastity belt 
was not made of iron and chains and 
chickenwire, but of Harold's lethal 
reputation. 
SHUTTLE comes into the spotlight. 
SHUTTLE 
I keep having this nightmare--that 
he catches us. 
PENELOPE 
Doing what? 
SHUTTLE 
He'd kill me. He'd be right to 
kill me, too--the kind of guy he is. 
PENELOPE 
Or was. We haven't done anything 
wrong, you know. 
SHUTTLE 
He'd assume we had. 
PENELOPE 

 That's something I suppose. 
SHUTTLE 
All through the day I'm so 
confident. That's why I'm such a 
good salesman, you know? I have 
confidence, and I look like I have 
confidence, and that gives other 
people confidence. People laugh 
sometimes when they find out I'm a 
vacuum cleaner salesman. They stop 
laughing, though, when they find 
out I made forty-three thousand 
dollars last year. I've got six 
other salesmen working under me, 
and what they all plug into is my 
confidence. That's what charges 
them up. 
PENELOPE 
I'm glad. 
SHUTTLE 
I was captain of the wrestling team 
at Lehigh University. 
PENELOPE 
I know. 
SHUTTLE 
If you want to wrestle, you got 
Lehigh. If you want to play 
tennis, you go to Vanderbilt. 
PENELOPE 
I don't want to go to Vanderbilt. 
SHUTTLE 
You don't wrestle if you don't have 
supreme confidence, and I wrestled. 
But when I get with you, and I say 
to myself, "My God--here I am with 
the wife of Harold Ryan, one of the 
great heroes of all time--" 

Pause. 
PENELOPE 
Yes? 
SHUTTLE 
Something happens to my confidence. 
PENELOPE 
(to the audience) 
This conversation took place, 
incidentally, about three months 
before Harold was declared legally 
dead. 
SHUTTLE 
When Harold is definitely out of 
the picture, Penelope, when I don't 
have to worry about doing him wrong 
or you wrong or Paul wrong. I'm 
going to ask you to be my wife. 
PENELOPE 
I'm touched. 
SHUTTLE 
That's when I'll get my confidence 
back. 
PENELOPE 
I see. 
SHUTTLE 
If you'll pardon the expression, 
that's when you'll see the fur and 
feathers fly. Good night. 
PENELOPE 
Good night. 
Blackout. 
SCENE TWO 

SHUTTLE and WOODLY argue in pitch darkness, with PAUL 
listening, and lights come up gradually to full on the 
living room the same evening. 
SHUTTLE 
You've got to fight from time to time. 
WOODLY 
Not true. 
SHUTTLE 
Or get eaten alive. 
WOODLY 
That's not true either--or needn't 
be, unless we make it true. 
SHUTTLE 
Phooey. 
WOODLY 
Which we do. But we can stop doing 
that. 
The lights are full. SHUTTLE and WOODLY are bored with each 
other, WOODLY looks out the window, speaks to an imaginary 
listener who has more brains than SHUTTLE. PAUL hates them 
both, but prefers SHUTTLE's noisy manliness. 
WOODLY 
We simply stop doing that--dropping 
things on each other, eating each 
other alive. 
SHUTTLE 
(calling) 
Penelope! We're late! 
PENELOPE 
(off, in master 
bedroom suite) 
Coming. 
SHUTTLE 
(to PAUL) 

 Women are always late. You'll find 
out. 
WOODLY 
(thoughtfully) 
The late Mrs. Harold Ryan. 
SHUTTLE 
I'm sick of this argument. I just 
have one more thing to say: If you 
elect a President, you support him, 
no matter what he does. That's the 
only way you can have a country! 
WOODLY 
It's the planet that's in ghastly 
trouble now and all our brothers 
and sisters thereon. 
SHUTTLE 
None of my relatives are Chinese 
Communists. Speak for yourself. 
WOODLY 
Chinese maniacs and Russian maniacs 
and American maniacs and French 
maniacs and British maniacs have 
turned this lovely, moist, 
nourishing blue-green ball into a 
doomsday device. Let a radar set 
and a computer mistake a hawk or a 
meteor for a missile, and that's 
the end of mankind. 
SHUTTLE 
You can believe that if you want. 
I talk to guys like you, and I want 
to commit suicide. 
(to PAUL) 
You get that weight-lifting set I 
sent you? 
PAUL 
It came yesterday. I haven't 

 opened it yet. 
WOODLY 
(musingly, attempting 
to find the idea 
acceptable, even 
funny, in a way) 
Maybe it's supposed to end now. 
Maybe God wouldn't have it any 
other way. 
SHUTTLE 
(to PAUL) 
Start with the smallest weights. 
Every week add a pound or two. 
WOODLY 
Maybe God has let everybody who 
ever lived be reborn--so he or she 
can see how it ends. Even 
Pithecanthropus erectus and 
Australopithecus and Sinanthropus 
pekensis and the Neanderthalers are 
back on Earth--to see how it ends. 
They're all on Times Square--making 
change for peepshows. Or recruiting 
Marines. 
SHUTTLE 
(to PAUL) 
You ever hear the story about the 
boy who carried a calf around the 
barn every day? 
WOODLY 
He died of a massive rupture. 
SHUTTLE 
You think you're so funny. You're 
not even funny. 
(to PAUL) 
Right? Right? You don't hurt 
yourself if you start out slow. 

 WOODLY 
You're preparing him for a career 
in the slaughterhouses of Dubuque? 
(to PAUL) 
Take care of your body, yes! But 
don't become a bender of horseshoes 
and railroad spikes. Don't become 
obsessed by your musculature. Any 
one of these poor, dead animals 
here was a thousand times the 
athlete you can ever hope to be. 
Their magic was in their muscles. 
Your magic is in your brains! 
PENELOPE enters from the bedroom, dressed for the fight. 
She wears barbaric jewelry HAROLD gave her years ago, a 
jaguar-skin coat over her shoulders. 
PENELOPE 
(brightly) 
Gentlemen! Is this right for a 
fight? It's been so long. 
SHUTTLE 
Beautiful! I've never seen that coat. 
PENELOPE 
Seven jaguars' skins, I'm told. 
Harold shot every one. Shall we go? 
WOODLY 
(sick about the slain jaguars) 
Oh no! Wear a coat of cotton--wear 
a coat of wool. 
PENELOPE 
What? 
WOODLY 
Wear a coat of domestic mink. For 
the love of God, though, Penelope, 
don't lightheartedly advertise that 
the last of the jaguars died for you. 

 SHUTTLE 
She's my date tonight. What do you 
want her to do--bring the poor old 
jaguars back to life with a bicycle 
pump? Bugger off! Ask Paul what 
he thinks. 
(to PAUL) 
Your mother looks beautiful--right? 
(PAUL pointedly 
declines to answer) 
Kid? 
(PAUL walks away from him) 
Doesn't your mother look nice? 
(he goes to PAUL, 
wondering what is wrong) 
Paul? 
PAUL 
(smolderingly) 
I don't care what she wears. 
SHUTTLE 
Something's made you sore. 
PAUL 
Don't worry about it. 
SHUTTLE 
You bet I'll worry about it. I 
said something wrong? 
PAUL 
(close to angry tears) 
It's my father's birthday--that's 
all. 
(facing everybody, 
raising his voice) 
That's all. Who cares about that? 
SHUTTLE 
(horrified, raising 
his hand to swear an oath) 
I had not the slightest inkling. 
(to PENELOPE, feeling betrayed) 

 Why didn't you say so? 
PAUL 
(bitterly) 
She doesn't care! She's not 
married any more! She's going to 
have fun! 
(to PENELOPE) 
I hope you have so much fun you can 
hardly stand it. 
(to WOODLY) 
Dr. Woodly--I hope you make up even 
better jokes about my father than 
the ones you've said so far. 
SHUTTLE 
(reaching out for PAUL) 
Kid--kid-- 
PAUL 
(to SHUTTLE) 
And I wish you'd quit touching me 
all the time. It drives me nuts! 
SHUTTLE 
(reaching out again) 
What's this? 
PAUL 
(recoiling) 
Don't! 
SHUTTLE 
(aghast) 
You sure misunderstood something-- 
and we'd better get it straight. 
PAUL 
Explain it to them. I'm bugging 
out of here. 
He grabs a jacket from a chair. SHUTTLE is in his way. 
PAUL 
Don't touch me. Get out of the way. 

 SHUTTLE 
Men can touch other men, and it 
doesn't mean a thing. Haven't you 
ever seen football players after 
they've won the Superbowl? 
PENELOPE 
(to PAUL) 
Where will you be? 
PAUL 
Anywhere but here. I'd just sit 
here and cry about the way my 
father's been forgotten. 
SHUTTLE 
I worship your father. That 
stuffed alligator your mother gave 
me--the one he shot? It's the 
proudest thing in my apartment. 
PAUL 
(at the door) 
Everybody talks about how rotten 
kids act. Grownups can be pretty 
rotten, too. 
He exits through front door, slams it. 
SHUTTLE 
(heartbroken) 
Kid--kid-- 
WOODLY 
It's good. Let him go. 
SHUTTLE 
If he'd just come out for the 
Little League, the way I asked him, 
he'd find out we touch all the 
time--shove each other, slug each 
other, and just horse around. I'm 
going to go get him-- 

 WOODLY 
Don't! Let him have all the 
privacy he wants. Let him grieve, 
let him rage. There has never been 
a funeral for his father. 
PENELOPE 
I never knew when to hold it--or 
who to ask, or what to say. 
WOODLY 
Tonight's the night. 
SHUTTLE 
If he'd just get into scouting, and 
camp out some, and see how 
everybody roughhouses around the 
fire-- 
WOODLY 
What a beautiful demonstration this 
is of the utter necessity of rites 
of passage. 
SHUTTLE 
I feel like I've been doublecrossed. 
(to PENELOPE, peevishly) 
If you'd just told me it was 
Harold's birthday-- 
PENELOPE 
What then? 
SHUTTLE 
We could have had some kind of 
birthday party for him. We could 
have taken Paul to the fight with us. 
WOODLY 
Minors aren't allowed at fights. 
SHUTTLE 
Then we'd stay home and eat venison 
or something, and look through the 

 scrapbooks. I've got a friend who 
has a whole freezer full of striped 
bass and caribou meat. 
(going to the front door) 
I'm going to bring that boy back. 
He exits through front door. 
WOODLY 
(going to PENELOPE) 
This is very good for us. 
PENELOPE 
It is? 
WOODLY 
The wilder Paul is tonight, the 
calmer he'll be tomorrow. 
PENELOPE 
As long as he keeps out of the park. 
WOODLY 
After this explosion, I think, 
he'll be able to accept the fact 
that his mother is going to marry 
again. 
PENELOPE 
The only thing I ever told him 
about life was, "Keep out of the 
park after the sun goes down." 
WOODLY 
We've got to dump Shuttle. 
(pointing to the 
vacuum cleaner) 
He brings his vacuum cleaner on dates? 
PENELOPE 
That's the XKE. 
WOODLY 
The what? 

 PENELOPE 
It's an experimental model. He 
doesn't dare leave it in his car, 
for fear it will fall into the 
hands of competition. 
WOODLY 
What kind of a life is that? 
PENELOPE 
He told me one time what the 
proudest moment of his life was. 
He made Eagle Scout when he was 
twenty-nine years old. 
(clinging to him suddenly) 
Oh, Norbert--promise me that Paul 
has not gone into the park! 
WOODLY 
(pause) 
If you warned him against it as 
much as you say, it's almost a 
certainty. 
PENELOPE 
(petrified) 
No! Oh no! Three people murdered 
in there in the last six weeks! 
The police won't even go in there 
any more. 
WOODLY 
I wish Paul luck. 
PENELOPE 
It's suicide! 
WOODLY 
I'd be dead by now if that were the 
case. 
PENELOPE 
Meaning? 
WOODLY 

 Every night, Penelope, for the past 
two years, I've made it a point to 
walk through the park at midnight. 
PENELOPE 
Why would you do that? 
WOODLY 
To show myself how brave I am. The 
issue's in doubt, you know--since 
I'm always for peace-- 
PENELOPE 
I'm amazed. 
WOODLY 
Me, too. I know something not even 
the police know--what's in the park 
at midnight. Nothing. Or, when 
I'm in there, there's me in there. 
Fear and nobody and me. 
PENELOPE 
And maybe Paul. What about the 
murderers? They're in there! 
WOODLY 
They didn't murder me. 
PENELOPE 
Paul's only twelve years old. 
WOODLY 
He can make the sound of human 
footsteps--which is a terrifying 
sound. 
PENELOPE 
We've got to rescue him. 
WOODLY 
If he is in the park, luck is all 
that can save him now, and there's 
plenty of that. 

 PENELOPE 
He's not your son. 
WOODLY 
No. But he's going to be. If he 
is in the park and he comes out 
safely on the other side, I can say 
to him, "You and I are the only men 
with balls enough to walk through 
the park at midnight." 
(pause) 
On that we can build. 
PENELOPE 
It's a jungle out there. 
WOODLY 
That's been said before. 
PENELOPE 
He'd go to a movie. I think that's 
what he'd do. If I were sure he 
was in a movie, I could stop 
worrying. We could have him paged. 
Lion doorbell roars. 
WOODLY 
I hate that thing. 
He opens the door, admits SHUTTLE, who carries a bakery box. 
PENELOPE 
Did you see him? 
SHUTTLE 
Yeah. 
PENELOPE 
Is he all right? 
SHUTTLE 
Far as I know. 
PENELOPE 

 Is he coming home? 
SHUTTLE 
He ditched me. He started running, 
and I started running, then he lost 
me in the park. 
PENELOPE 
The park! 
SHUTTLE 
It's dark in there. 
PENELOPE 
And that's where he is! 
SHUTTLE 
I figure he ducked in one place and 
ducked out another. 
PENELOPE 
(disgusted with him) 
You figure! 
SHUTTLE 
Then I saw this bakery store that 
was still open, so I bought a 
birthday cake. 
PENELOPE 
A what? 
SHUTTLE 
For Harold. When Paul comes home, 
we can have some birthday cake. 
PENELOPE 
How nice. 
SHUTTLE 
They had this cake somebody else 
hadn't picked up. It says, "Happy 
Birthday, Somebody Else." 
WOODLY 
"Happy Birthday, Wanda June!" 

 SHUTTLE 
We can take off the "Wanda June" 
with a butter knife. 
PENELOPE 
Did you talk to Paul? 
SHUTTLE 
Before he started to run. He said 
his father carried a key to this 
apartment around his neck--and 
someday we'd all hear the sound of 
that key in the door. 
PENELOPE 
We've got to find him. 
(preparing to exit 
through front door) 
I want you to show me exactly where 
you saw him last. 
(to WOODLY) 
And you stay here, Norbert, in case 
he comes home. 
(to SHUTTLE) 
That's all he said--the thing about 
the key? 
SHUTTLE 
He said one other thing. It wasn't 
very nice. 
PENELOPE 
What was it? 
SHUTTLE 
He told me to take a flying fuck at 
the moon. 
Blackout. 
SCENE THREE 
DARKNESS. Lights come up on living room. WOODLY is alone, 
asleep on the couch. 

HAROLD lets himself and LOOSELEAF in through the front 
door--quietly. HAROLD has a full beard and a paunch. 
LOOSELEAF is skinnier. He has a handlebar moustache. Both 
wear new sports clothes and smoke expensive cigars. HAROLD 
is calm. LOOSELEAF is nervous, confused. They prowl the 
room cautiously, checking this and that. HAROLD awakens 
WOODLY by playing with his feet. 
WOODLY 
(startled) 
Ooops. 
HAROLD 
(to LOOSELEAF, very amused) 
Ooops. 
WOODLY 
Can I--uh--help you gentlemen? 
HAROLD 
(moving downstage, 
feeling at home) 
Gentlemen--that's nice. 
WOODLY 
(to LOOSELEAF) 
You startled me. 
LOOSELEAF 
Yeah. We just got here. 
WOODLY 
I thought you might be burglars-- 
but you're not, I hope. 
LOOSELEAF 
Nope. 
(idiotically, 
incapable of deception) 
I got a lot of stuff. 
WOODLY 
(looking at him closely) 
You do? 

 HAROLD 
The door ws unlocked. Is it always 
unlocked? 
WOODLY 
It's always locked. 
HAROLD 
But here you are inside, aren't you? 
WOODLY 
You're--you're old friends of 
Harold Ryan? 
HAROLD 
We tried to be. We tried to be. 
WOODLY 
He's dead, you know. 
HAROLD 
Dead! Such a final word. Dead! 
(to LOOSELEAF) 
Did you hear that? 
LOOSELEAF 
Yup. 
Telephone rings. WOODLY answers, keeping his eyes on the 
bizarre guests. 
WOODLY 
Hello? Oh--hello, Mother. 
HAROLD 
(to LOOSELEAF) 
Hello, Mother. 
WOODLY 
...Who?... Did she say how far 
apart the pains were?... When was 
that?... Oh dear. 
HAROLD 

 Oh dear. 
WOODLY 
Call her back--tell her to head for 
the hospital. Tell the hospital to 
expect her. I'll leave right now. 
He hangs up, faces the intruders. 
WOODLY 
Look--I'm sorry--I have to go. 
HAROLD 
We'll miss you so. 
WOODLY 
Look--this isn't my apartment, and 
there isn't anybody else here. Mrs. 
Ryan won't be home for a while. 
HAROLD 
Oh, oh, oh--I thought it was your 
apartment. You seemed at home here. 
WOODLY 
I'm a neighbor. I have the 
apartment across the hall. I have 
to go to the hospital now. An 
emergency. 
HAROLD is unstirred. 
WOODLY 
I mean--I can't leave you here. 
You'll have to go. I'll tell Mrs. 
Ryan you were here. You can come 
back later. 
HAROLD 
Ahh--then she's still alive. 
WOODLY 
She's fine. Please-- 
HAROLD 

 And still Mrs. Harold Ryan? 
WOODLY 
Will you please go? An emergency! 
HAROLD 
She still has just the one child-- 
the boy? 
He moves slowly toward the front door, with WOODLY trying to 
hustle him and LOOSELEAF out. 
WOODLY 
Yes! Yes! The boy! One boy! 
HAROLD 
(stopping) 
And what, exactly, is your 
relationship to Mrs. Ryan? 
WOODLY 
Neighbor! Doctor! I live across 
the hall. 
HAROLD 
And you come into Mrs. Ryan's 
apartment as often as you please, 
looking into various health matters? 
WOODLY 
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 fianc! 
HAROLD 

 (delighted) 
And her fianc! 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 
(quietly) 

 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 

 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. 

 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 
(hotly) 

 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! 

 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! 

 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 of 
LOOSELEAF 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! 

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, 

 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 

 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, 

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 

 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. 

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 

 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 
What do you do for a living? 

 HAROLD 
My parents died in an automobile 
accident when I was sixteen years 
old. They left me a brewery and a 
baseball team--and other things. I 
live for a living. I've just come 
back from Kenya--in Africa. I've 
been hunting Mau Mau there. 
PENELOPE 
Some kind of animal? 
HAROLD 
The pelt is black. It's a kind of 
man. 
Blackout. 
SCENE SIX 
CURTAIN rises on empty living room. PAUL lets himself in 
with a key. 
PAUL 
Mom? 
(silence) 
Herb? 
(silence) 
Dr. Woodly? 
(advances into room uneasily) 
Hello? 
(sees the cake) 
A cake? Who's Wanda June? 
HAROLD enters quietly from the kitchen, holding a can of beer. 
PAUL 
Anybody home? 
HAROLD 
As a matter of fact-- 
PAUL 
(nearly jumping out 
of his skin) 

 Sir? 
HAROLD 
As a matter of fact--I am home. 
PAUL 
(thinking HAROLD may 
be a burglar) 
Hello. 
HAROLD 
(simply) 
Hello. 
PAUL 
Are you-- 
His voice fails him. 
HAROLD 
(hoping to be recognized) 
You were about to ask a question? 
PAUL 
Are you--do you-- 
HAROLD 
Ask it! 
PAUL 
(blurting) 
Do you know who Wanda June is? 
HAROLD 
Life has denied me that thrill. 
PAUL 
Do you mind if I ask who you are? 
HAROLD 
Mind? 
(aside) 
God, yes, I mind. 
(to PAUL) 
I'm your father's friend. A man 

 claiming to be the family physician 
let me in a while ago. 
PAUL 
Dr. Woodly. 
HAROLD 
Dr. Woodly. I should make a little 
list. 
PAUL 
Is anybody besides you here now? 
HAROLD 
The doctor was called away on an 
emergency. I think it was birth. 
PAUL 
Where's Mom? 
HAROLD 
You don't know where your mother is? 
Does she put on a short skirt and 
go drinking all night? 
PAUL 
She went to the fight with Herb 
Shuttle, I guess. 
HAROLD 
You think you could find me a 
pencil and paper? 
PAUL 
I'll see. 
He rummages through a drawer. 
HAROLD 
And you've been roaming the streets 
while your mother is God-knows-where? 
PAUL 
I was going to a funny movie, but I 
changed my mind. If you're 

 depressed, laughing doesn't help 
much. 
(gives HAROLD pencil 
and paper) 
When did you know my father? 
HAROLD 
Man and boy. 
PAUL 
Everybody says he was so brave. 
HAROLD 
Even this--"Herb Shuttle", you said? 
PAUL 
He worships Father. 
HAROLD 
(pleased) 
Ah! And what sort of man is this 
worshiper? 
PAUL 
He's a vacuum cleaner salesman. 
HAROLD 
(deflated) 
I see. 
(recovering) 
And he came into the apartment one 
day, to demonstrate his wares, and 
your mother, as it happened, was 
charmingly en deshabille-- 
PAUL 
She met him at college. 
HAROLD 
(startled) 
College! 
PAUL 
They were in the same creative 
writing class. 

 HAROLD 
College? 
PAUL 
She has a master's degree in 
English literature. 
HAROLD 
What a pity! Educating a beautiful 
woman is like pouring honey into a 
fine Swiss watch. Everything stops. 
(pause) 
And the doctor? He worships your 
father, too? 
PAUL 
He insults him all the time. 
HAROLD 
(delighted) 
Excellent! 
PAUL 
What's good about that? 
HAROLD 
It makes life spicy. 
PAUL 
He doesn't do it in front of me, 
but he does it with Mother. 
(indicating HAROLD's portrait) 
You know what he called Father one 
time? 
HAROLD 
No. 
PAUL 
"Harold, the Patron Saint of 
Taxidermy." 
HAROLD 
(measuring his opponent) 

 What does he do--of an athletic 
nature? 
PAUL 
Nothing. He plays a violin in a 
doctors' quartet. 
HAROLD 
Aha! He has a brilliant military 
record, I'm sure. 
PAUL 
He was a stretcher-bearer in the 
Korean War. 
(pause) 
Were you in a war with Father? 
HAROLD 
Big ones, little ones, teeny-weeny 
ones--just and otherwise. 
PAUL 
Tell me some true stories about Dad. 
HAROLD 
(unused to the word) 
"Dad?" 
(accepting it) 
Dad. 
(to himself) 
The boy wants tales of derring-do. 
Name a country. 
PAUL 
England? 
HAROLD 
(disgusted) 
Oh hell. 
PAUL 
Dad was never in England? 
HAROLD 
Behind a desk for a little while. 

 (contemptuously) 
A desk! They had him planning air 
raids. A city can't flee like a 
coward or fight like a man, and the 
choice between fleeing and fighting 
was at the core of the life of 
Harold Ryan. There was only one 
thing he enjoyed more than watching 
someone make that choice, and that 
was making the choice himself. Ask 
about Spain, where he was the 
youngest soldier in the Abraham 
Lincoln Brigade. He was a famous 
sniper. They called him "La 
Picadura"--"the sting." 
PAUL 
(echoing wonderingly) 
"The sting." 
HAROLD 
As in "Death, where is thy sting?" 
He killed at least fifty men, 
wounded hundreds more. 
PAUL 
(slightly dismayed at 
such murderousness) 
"The sting." 
HAROLD 
Ask about the time he and I were 
parachuted into Yugoslavia to join 
a guerrilla band--in the war 
against the Nazis. 
PAUL 
Tell me that. 
HAROLD 
I saw your father fight Major 
Siegfried von Konigswald, the Beast 
of Yugoslavia, hand to hand. 

 PAUL 
(his excitement rising) 
Tell me that! Tell me that! 
HAROLD 
Hid by day--fought by night. At 
sunset one day, your father and I, 
peering through field glasses, saw 
a black Mercedes draw up to a 
village inn. It was escorted by 
two motorcyclists and an armored 
car. Out of the Mercedes stepped 
one of the most hateful men in all 
of history--the Beast of Yugoslavia. 
PAUL 
Wow. 
HAROLD 
We blacked our hands and faces. At 
midnight we crept out of the forest 
and into the village. The name of 
the village was Mhravitch. 
Remember that name! 
PAUL 
Mhravitch. 
HAROLD 
We came up behind a sentry, and 
your father slit his throat before 
he could utter a sound. 
PAUL 
(involuntarily) 
Uck. 
HAROLD 
Don't care for cold steel? A knife 
is worse than a bullet? 
PAUL 
I don't know. 
HAROLD 

 The story gets hairier. Should I 
stop? 
PAUL 
Go on. 
HAROLD 
We caught another Kraut alone in a 
back lane. Your father choked him 
to death with a length of piano 
wire. Your father was quite a 
virtuoso with piano wire. That's 
nicer than a knife, isn't it--as 
long as you don't look at the face 
afterwards. The face turns a 
curious shade of avocado. I must 
ask the doctor why that is. At any 
rate, we stole into the back of the 
inn, and, with the permission of 
the management, we poisoned the 
wine of six Krauts who were 
carousing there. 
PAUL 
Where did you get the poison? 
HAROLD 
We carried cyanide capsules. We 
were supposed to swallow them in 
case we were captured. It was your 
father's opinion that the Krauts 
needed them more than we did at the 
time. 
PAUL 
And one of them was the Beast of 
Yugoslavia? 
HAROLD 
The Beast was upstairs, and he came 
running downstairs, for his men 
were making loud farewells and last 
wills and testaments--editorializing 
about the hospitality they had 
received. And your father said to 

 him in perfect German, which he had 
learned in the Spanish Civil War, 
"Major, something tragic seems to 
have happened to your bodyguard. I 
am Harold Ryan, of the United 
States of America. You, I believe, 
are the Beast of Yugoslavia." 
Blackout. 
SCENE SEVEN 
SILENCE. Pitch blackness. The sounds of a Nazi rally come 
up slowly: "Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!" Spotlight 
comes up on MAJOR SIEGFRIED VON KONIGSWALD, and officer in 
the dreaded SS. He is in full ceremonial uniform. The 
sounds fade. 
VON KONIGSWALD 
(sadly, resignedly, remembering) 
Ja ja. Ja ja. 
(pause) 
I am Major Siegfried von Konigswald. 
They used to call me "The Beast of 
Yugoslavia," on account of all the 
people I had tortured and shot--and 
hanged. We'd bop 'em on the head. 
We'd hook 'em up to the electricity. 
We'd stick 'em with hypodermic 
syringes full of all kinds of stuff. 
One time we killed a guy with 
orange juice. There was a train 
wreck, and two of the freight cars 
were loaded with oranges, so we had 
oceans of orange juice. It was a 
joke--how much orange juice we had. 
And we were interrogating a guy one 
day, and he wouldn't talk, and the 
next thing I know--somebody's 
filling up this big syringe with 
orange juice. 
(pause) 
There was a guerrilla war going on. 
You couldn't tell who was a 

 guerrilla and who wasn't. 
Even if you got one, it was still a 
civilian you got. Telling 
Americans what a guerrilla war is 
like--that's coals to Newcastle. 
How do you like that for idiomatic 
English? "Coals to Newcastle." 
(laughs) 
That Harold Ryan--he says he spoke 
to me in perfect German? He talks 
German like my ass chews gum. I'm 
glad to hear the wonderful thing he 
said before he killed me. I sure 
didn't understand it the first time 
around. I figured he was a 
Lithuanian or something, which will 
give you an idea of how wrong you 
can be. All I knew was he was very 
proud about something, and he had a 
machine pistol, and it was aimed at 
me. The woods were full of all 
kinds of nuts who were proud of 
some damn thing or other, and they 
all had guns. They were always 
looking for revenge. You find a 
way to bottle revenge--that's the 
end of Schnapps und Coca-Cola. 
(pause) 
Harold Ryan said he killed maybe 
two hundred guys. I killed a 
hundred times that many, I bet. 
That's still peanuts, of course, 
compared to what that crazy 
Looseleaf did. Harold and me--we 
was doing it the hard way. I hope 
the record books will show that. 
There should be a little star or 
something by the names of the guys 
who did it the hard way. 
(pause) 
I'm up in Heaven now, like that 
little Wanda June kid. I wasn't 
hit by no ice-cream truck. Harold 

 Ryan killed me with his bare hands. 
He was good. My eyes popped out. 
My tongue stuck out like a red 
banana. I shit in my pants. It 
was a mess. 
(pause) 
When I got up on the day I died, I 
said, "What a beautiful day this is. 
What a beautiful part of the 
world." The whole planet was 
beautiful. Up here I meet guys 
from other planets. 
(laughs) 
We got some really crazy-looking 
guys up here. Their planets 
weren't anywhere near as nice as 
Earth. They had clouds all the 
time. They never saw a clear blue 
sky. They never saw snow. They 
never saw an ocean. They had some 
little lakes, but you couldn't go 
swimming in them. The lakes were 
acid. You go swimming, you 
dissolve. We got some guys up here 
who got shoved in them lakes. They 
dissolved. 
(pause) 
Harold Ryan stopped talking German 
to me there in Yugoslavia. He 
switched to English, so I finally 
got some kind of idea what he was 
so burned up about. He wanted 
revenge for the guy we killed with 
orange juice. I don't know how he 
ever found out about it. There was 
just three of us there when we did 
it--me and two regular military 
doctors. Somebody who cleaned up 
afterwards must have squealed. If 
I'd lived through the war, and they 
tried me for war crimes and all 
that, I'd have to tell the court, I 
guess, "I was only following 

 orders, as a good soldier should. 
Hitler told me to kill this guy 
with orange juice." 
Blackout. 
SCENE EIGHT 
DARKNESS. Lights come up on living room. HAROLD has just 
finished telling his true war story to PAUL. 
HAROLD 
Mhravitch. Remember that name. 
PAUL 
Mhravitch. 
HAROLD 
The name will live forever. It was 
there that Harold Ryan slew the 
Beast of Yugoslavia. Mhravitch. 
PAUL 
When I grow up, I'm going to go to 
Mhravitch. 
HAROLD 
It's rather a disappointment these 
days. It isn't there any more. 
PAUL 
Sir? 
HAROLD 
The Germans shot everybody who 
lived there, then leveled it, 
plowed it, planted turnips and 
cabbages in the fertile ground. 
They wished revenge for the slaying 
of the Beast of Yugoslavia. To 
their twisted way of thinking, your 
father had butchered an Eagle Scout. 
(abruptly) 
Play lots of contact sports? 

 PAUL 
I wanted to go out for football, 
but Mom was afraid I'd get hurt. 
HAROLD 
You're supposed to get hurt! 
PAUL 
Dr. Woodly says he's seen hundreds 
of children permanently injured by 
football. He says that when 
there's a war, everybody goes but 
football players. 
HAROLD 
Does it bother you to have your 
mother engaged to a man like that? 
PAUL 
They're not engaged. 
HAROLD 
He seems to think they are. He 
told me that were. 
PAUL 
Oh no, no, no, no, no. It can't be. 
How embarrassing. 
HAROLD 
(unexpectedly moved) 
You're a very good boy to respond 
that way. 
PAUL 
No, no, no, no, no. 
HAROLD 
I'd like to use the sanitary 
facilities, if I may. 
PAUL 
Go ahead. 
(as HAROLD exits) 
No, no, no, no. 

PENELOPE and SHUTTLE enter through front door. They are 
tremendously relieved to see PAUL. 
PAUL 
Thank God! 
SHUTTLE 
What a relief! 
PENELOPE 
(going to PAUL) 
My baby's safe! 
PAUL angrily avoids her touch. 
PENELOPE 
What's the matter now? 
SHUTTLE 
We got a birthday cake, kid. Did 
you see the cake? 
PAUL 
Are you and Dr. Woodly engaged? 
PENELOPE 
(stunned) 
Who have you been talking to? 
PAUL 
What difference does that make? Is 
Dr. Woodly going to be my father now? 
Pause. 
PENELOPE 
Yes, he is. 
PAUL 
(a stifled, gargling cry) 
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah! 
SHUTTLE 
(sick) 

 That goes double for me. 
PAUL 
I don't want to live any more. 
SHUTTLE 
I feel like I want to yell my head 
off--just yell anything. 
(yelling) 
Bulllllllllllllll-dickey! 
PAUL 
I'll kill myself. 
SHUTTLE 
The wife of Harold Ryan is going to 
marry a pansy next? This is the 
end of Western Civilization as far 
as I'm concerned. You must be 
crazy as a fruitcake. 
PENELOPE 
Possibly. 
SHUTTLE 
How long has this been going on? 
PENELOPE 
A week. We were waiting for the 
right time to-- 
SHUTTLE 
I feel as though I had been made a 
perfect chump of. 
PENELOPE 
I'm sorry. 
SHUTTLE 
Marry me instead. 
PENELOPE 
Thank you, Herb. You're a 
wonderful man. You really are. 
Everybody respects you for what 

 you've done for scouting and the 
Little League. 
SHUTTLE 
You're saying no. 
PENELOPE 
I'm saying no--and thank you. 
SHUTTLE 
I didn't make my move fast enough. 
That's it, isn't it? I was too 
respectful. 
PENELOPE 
You were wonderful. 
SHUTTLE 
What's so wonderful if I lost the 
sale? 
(turning to PAUL) 
You poor kid. 
PAUL 
Don't touch me. 
SHUTTLE 
Wouldn't you rather have your 
mother marry me than him? 
PAUL 
No. 
SHUTTLE 
(moving dazedly 
toward the front door) 
All my dreams have suddenly 
collapsed. 
(pause) 
We did have a lot of laughs 
together, Penelope. 
PENELOPE 
It's true. 

 SHUTTLE 
Well--it was nice while it lasted. 
Thanks for the memories. 
He exits. 
Silence. A toilet flushes loudly and complicatedly. 
PENELOPE 
Is Norbert still here? 
PAUL 
No. 
PENELOPE 
Then who flushed the toilet? 
PAUL 
Father's friend. 
PENELOPE 
What's his name? 
PAUL 
Don't know. 
PENELOPE 
For Heaven's sakes! 
HAROLD enters, still adjusting his trousers. 
PENELOPE 
How do you do? 
HAROLD 
How do you do, Mrs. Ryan? I'd 
heard you were beautiful, and so 
you are. Am I intruding here? 
PENELOPE 
Not at all. 
HAROLD 
I couldn't help overhearing that 
you were about to get married again. 

PENELOPE has now recognized him, but attempts to protect 
herself from shock by pretending that she has not. 
PENELOPE 
Our family physician has asked me 
to marry him. Paul needs the 
guidance and companionship that 
only a man can give. He isn't at 
all like Harold. But then again, 
I'm not the woman I was eight years 
ago. 
She slumps into a chair, buries her face in her hands. 
PAUL 
Mom? 
PENELOPE 
(pointing weakly) 
That man is your father. 
PAUL 
What? 
PENELOPE 
There stands the loins from which 
you've sprung. 
PAUL 
I don't get it. 
PENELOPE 
It is you, isn't it, Harold? 
HAROLD 
(enjoying the drama hugely) 
Yes, wife, it is. 
(to PAUL) 
Come here, boy. Your father is home. 
PAUL 
Sir? 
PENELOPE 

 Go to him. 
PAUL goes to HAROLD dazedly. They embrace clumsily. 
HAROLD PAUL 
Son, son, son... Father, father, father... 
They part, unsatisfied and confused. HAROLD goes to 
PENELOPE, his arms outstretched. 
HAROLD 
Wife, wife, wife... 
PENELOPE struggles to her feet, her face blank. HAROLD 
embraces her, finds himself wrestling with a rigid, 
unresponsive object. 
HAROLD 
Wife, wife, wife... 
HAROLD lets go, backs away from her. 
HAROLD 
What's the matter? 
PENELOPE 
(tearful) 
Give us time. 
HAROLD 
Like hugging a lamp post. 
PENELOPE 
Give us time, Harold--to adjust to 
your being alive. 
HAROLD 
You were well adjusted to my being 
dead? 
PENELOPE 
We adjust to what there is to 
adjust to. Perhaps Paul, being 
young, can adjust to joy or grief 
immediately. I hope he can. I 

 will take a little longer. I'll be 
as quick as I can. 
HAROLD 
What sort of time period do you 
have in mind? Half an hour? An hour? 
PENELOPE 
I don't know. This is a new 
disease to me. 
HAROLD 
Disease? 
PENELOPE 
Situation. 
HAROLD 
This reunion isn't what I imagined 
it would be. 
PENELOPE 
A telegram--a phone call might have 
helped. 
HAROLD 
Seemed the most honest way to begin 
life together again--natural, 
unrehearsed. 
PENELOPE 
Well--enjoy the natural, honest, 
unrehearsed result--surgical shock. 
HAROLD 
You feel that you're behaving as a 
woman should? 
PENELOPE 
Every fuse in my nervous system has 
been blown. 
Lion doorbell roars. 
PENELOPE 

 Who's that? Teddy Roosevelt? 
PAUL answers the door, admits WOODLY. 
WOODLY 
(to PAUL) 
Safe and sound, I see. 
(to HAROLD) 
Oh--you came back. 
HAROLD 
I came back. 
PENELOPE 
You know each other? 
WOODLY 
We met here earlier this evening. 
PENELOPE 
How neat. How keen. 
HAROLD 
How was the emergency, Doctor? 
Profitable, I hope. 
WOODLY 
A policeman delivered the baby in a 
taxicab. 
HAROLD 
Tough luck. You'll have to split 
the fee. 
WOODLY 
(puzzled by PENELOPE's 
mood) 
Are--are you crying, Penelope? 
HAROLD 
She's crying because she's so happy. 
PENELOPE 
That's why I'm crying. 

 PAUL 
Dr. Woodly? 
(indicating HAROLD) 
You know who this is? 
WOODLY 
I didn't get his name. A friend of 
your father? 
PAUL 
He isn't any friend of Father. 
WOODLY 
He isn't? 
PAUL 
He is my father. 
WOODLY 
No! 
PENELOPE 
Eeeeeeeeeeee-yup. Dr. Woodly--I 
would like you to meet Harold, my 
husband. Harold, this is Dr. 
Woodly, my fianc. 
She crosses to the door of the master bedroom, kissing each 
male lightly as she passes. 
PENELOPE 
Good night, dear. Good night, dear. 
She stands in the doorway. 
PENELOPE 
Stay or go, talk or sulk, laugh or 
cry--as you wish. Do whatever 
seems called for. My mind is gone. 
Good night. 
She exits into bedroom, closes the door firmly, locks it 
audibly. 
WOODLY 

 (dazedly) 
I feel the same way. What next? 
HAROLD 
What next? You leave promptly, of 
course. There is no question as to 
whose home this is-- 
WOODLY 
None. 
HAROLD 
Whose son this is, whose wife that 
is. A fianc is the most ridiculous 
appurtenance this household could 
have at this time. Good night. 
WOODLY 
(crushed, without any 
possible comeback) 
Good night. 
He exits through the front door. HAROLD goes at once to 
PENELOPE's door, tries it, finds it locked. 
HAROLD 
Penelope! God damn it! Penelope! 
He considers kicking down the door, thinks better of this, 
turns away. 
HAROLD 
Wants to fix up her makeup, no doubt. 
PAUL 
Is Looseleaf Harper alive? 
HAROLD 
Alive and hale. He's throwing a 
little surprise party for his own 
family. Is your mother often this 
unstable? 
(not waiting for an 
answer, calling again) 
Penelope! 

 PAUL 
She's a real heavy sleeper sometimes. 
HAROLD 
Why don't you go to bed--son. 
PAUL 
I can't take my eyes off you. 
HAROLD 
Tomorrow's another day. 
PAUL 
You know what my English literature 
teacher said about you? 
HAROLD 
Can't it keep till morning? 
PAUL 
She said you were legendary. I 
wrote a theme about you, and she 
said, "Your father is a legendary 
hero out of the Golden Age of 
Heroes." 
HAROLD 
That's nice. You thank her for me. 
Go to bed and get lots of sleep, 
and then you thank her in the morning. 
PAUL 
Tomorrow's Saturday. Anyway, she's 
dead. 
HAROLD 
Penelope! 
PAUL 
She was killed in the park two 
months ago--in the daytime. 
HAROLD 
Penelope! 

 PAUL 
She was on her way home from a 
meeting of the African Violet 
Society, and they got her. 
HAROLD 
(sharply) 
Will you go to bed? 
PAUL 
(stung) 
Yes sir. If you can't wake Mom up, 
I've got double-decker bunks. 
HAROLD 
(stamping his foot) 
Scat! 
PAUL exits hastily down the corridor to his room. HAROLD 
goes to PENELOPE's door, attempts to woo her through it. 
HAROLD 
Penelope--darling--can you hear me? 
Wife--you know what kept me alive 
all these fevered, swampy, 
nightmare years? Your heavenly 
face, Penelope, my wife--shimmering 
before me, coaxing me up from my 
knees, begging me to stagger one 
step closer to home. Has love ever 
reached so far? Has love ever 
overcome more hardships than mine? 
(silence) 
Has love ever asked more manliness 
of a man, more womanliness of a 
woman? Has ever a man done more 
for a woman's reward? 
The bedroom door opens, revealing PENELOPE. 
PENELOPE 
(hollowly, to the 
world at large) 
There is no one in here of any 

 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 

 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? 

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. 

 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? 

 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 

 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 

 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-- 

 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 taking her to the airport a few 
minutes from now. She's going to 
East St. Louis--to visit an aunt. 
PENELOPE 
Tell her to have a nice trip. 
WOODLY 
(moving towards the 

 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 

 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! 

 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 

 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 

 (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. 

 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. 

 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 

 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 to eat the onion like an 
apple. Do you understand? 
PENELOPE turns away. 
HAROLD 
And lots of orange juice--oceans of 
orange juice. 
PENELOPE 
Mrs. Wheeler is dead. 

 HAROLD 
All right--bring me a side order of 
Mrs. Wheeler. 
(regarding LOOSELEAF, 
resigning himself to 
being stuck with his 
company for a little 
while longer) 
Oh, hell--sit down, Colonel. 
Penelope will bring you some chow. 
PENELOPE 
That is the most heartless 
statement I ever heard pass between 
human lips. 
HAROLD 
(honestly mystified) 
Which one? 
PENELOPE 
(chokingly) 
"Bring me a side order of Mrs. 
Wheeler." 
HAROLD 
She's up in Heaven now. She didn't 
hear. She is experiencing nothing 
but pure happiness. There's 
nothing nicer than that. 
(suddenly, angrily, 
slamming a table with 
his fist) 
Chow! Harold Ryan wants chow! 
PENELOPE 
What a honeymoon. 
HAROLD 
Honeymoon temporarily canceled. 
(catching sight of 
PAUL, whose physical 
appearance really 
offends him) 

 The boy should still go out and 
exercise. I have the impression he 
never gets any exercise. He simply 
bloats himself with Fig Newtons and 
bakes his brains over steam radiators. 
PENELOPE 
You're wrong. 
HAROLD 
Then let me see him go out and get 
some exercise. 
(explosively) 
Right now! 
PAUL goes reeling in terror to the front door, opens it. 
PAUL 
(to HAROLD, abjectly) 
What kind of exercise? 
HAROLD 
Beat the shit out of someone who 
hates you. 
PAUL exits. HAROLD pounds on a table. 
HAROLD 
Chow, chow, chow! God damn it-- 
nutriment! 
PENELOPE 
We're all going to have to go out 
for breakfast. The cook quit 
yesterday. 
HAROLD 
You're a woman, aren't you? 
PENELOPE nods. 
HAROLD 
Then we have a cook. 
PENELOPE hesitates. 

 HAROLD 
Cook, by God! Cook! You're the 
nigger now. 
PENELOPE 
People don't use that word any more. 
HAROLD 
Don't lecture me on race relations. 
I don't have a molecule of 
prejudice. I've been in battle 
with every kind of man there is. 
I've been in bed with every kind of 
woman there is--from a Laplander to 
a Tierra del Fuegian. 
If I'd ever been to the South Pole, 
there'd be a hell of a lot of 
penguins who looked like me. Cook! 
PENELOPE 
You leave me so--so without-- 
without dignity. 
HAROLD 
People now have dignity when frying 
eggs? 
PENELOPE 
They don't have to feel like slaves. 
HAROLD 
(grandly) 
Then go now--and fry with dignity-- 
sunnyside up. 
PENELOPE attempts to respond to this, but is too enraged. 
She exits, making a tiny mosquito-like hum. 
LOOSELEAF 
I dunno, boy. 
HAROLD 
The educational process. 

 LOOSELEAF 
I guess. You're lucky you don't 
have any old people around here. 
HAROLD 
She was about to get married again. 
She locked me out of the bedroom 
last night. 
LOOSELEAF starts to laugh. HAROLD shuts him up. 
HAROLD 
What's funny about that? 
LOOSELEAF 
(apologetically) 
You know me, boy. 
PENELOPE enters from the kitchen with a question on her lips. 
HAROLD 
I should have torn that door off 
its hinges. Should have scrogged 
her ears off. Should have broken 
the bed. 
(seeing PENELOPE) 
What do you want? 
(words fail her) 
Well? 
PENELOPE 
I--I was wondering--is there 
anything you shouldn't eat--because 
of jungle fever? 
HAROLD 
I could eat a raw baby crocodile. 
(turning to LOOSELEAF crassly) 
The way to get your wife back is in 
bed. Do such a job on her that 
she'll be lucky if she can crawl 
around on all fours. 
(to PENELOPE) 
We're starving. Do you mind? 

PENELOPE exits dumbly, detesting the word "scrog," which she 
has never heard before. 
HAROLD 
She had two lovers, by the way. 
LOOSELEAF starts to laugh again, stops the laugh as HAROLD 
glowers. 
LOOSELEAF 
Excuse me. 
HAROLD 
One of them is the doctor, whose 
weapons are compassion, 
unselfishness, peacefulness-- 
maudlin concern. 
LOOSELEAF 
Huh. 
HAROLD 
He and his love are like a 
retiarius. Do you know what a 
retiarius is? 
LOOSELEAF 
He's a kind of gladiator who fights 
with a knife and a net and doesn't 
wear anything but a jockstrap. 
HAROLD 
(amazed) 
How do you know that? 
LOOSELEAF 
You told me. 
HAROLD 
When? 
LOOSELEAF 
When we were up in the tree so 
long--with the bats. 

 HAROLD 
Oh. I'd forgotten. 
LOOSELEAF 
Fourteen times you told me. I 
counted. 
HAROLD 
Really? 
LOOSELEAF 
You'd get this funny look in your 
eyes, and I'd say to myself, "Oh, 
Jesus--he's going to tell me what a 
retiarius is again." 
HAROLD 
(acknowledging a flaw 
in a manly way) 
Sorry. 
PENELOPE enters, is about to speak. HAROLD stops her with a 
raised finger. 
HAROLD 
Let me guess--breakfast is served? 
PENELOPE 
No. 
HAROLD 
What then? 
PENELOPE 
I do not wish to be scrogged--ever. 
I never heard that word, but when I 
heard it, I knew it was one thing I 
never wanted to have happen to me. 
HAROLD 
That's what you're supposed to say. 
PENELOPE 
This is not a coy deception. I do 
not want to be scrogged. I want 

 love. I want tenderness. 
HAROLD 
You don't know you want. That's 
the way God built you! 
PENELOPE 
I will not be scrogged. I remember 
one time I saw you wrench a hook 
from the throat of a fish with a 
pair of pliers, and you promised me 
that the fish couldn't feel. 
HAROLD 
It couldn't! 
PENELOPE 
I'd like to have the expert opinion 
of the fish--along with yours. 
HAROLD 
(shaking his head) 
Fish can't feel. 
PENELOPE 
Well, I can. Some injuries, 
spiritual or physical, can be 
excruciating to me. I'm not a 
silly carhop any more. 
(an unexpected, minor insight) 
Maybe you're right about fish. 
When I was a carhop, I didn't feel 
much more than a fish would. But 
I've been sensitized. I have ideas 
now--and solid information. I know 
a lot more now--and a lot of it has 
to do with you. 
HAROLD 
(sensing danger) 
Such as?... 
PENELOPE 
The whole concept of heroism--and 

 its sexual roots. 
HAROLD 
Tell me about its sexual roots. 
PENELOPE 
It's complicated and I don't want 
to go into it now, because it's 
bound to sound insulting--even 
though nobody means for anybody to 
be insulted. It's just the truth. 
HAROLD 
I like the truth. I wouldn't be 
alive today if I weren't one of the 
biggest fans truth ever had. 
PENELOPE 
Well--part of it is that heroes 
basically hate home and never stay 
there very long, and make awful 
messes while they're there. 
HAROLD 
Go on. 
PENELOPE 
(blurting) 
And they have very mixed feelings 
about women. They hate them in a 
way. One reason they like war so 
much is that they can capture enemy 
women and not have to make love to 
them slowly and gently. They can 
scrog them, as you say-- 
(pause) 
for revenge. 
HAROLD 
You learned this in some college 
course? 
PENELOPE 
I learned a lot of things in 

 college. Actually--it was Norbert 
who told me that. 
HAROLD 
(darkly) 
The doctor. 
PENELOPE 
Yes. 
HAROLD 
And what is his most cherished 
possession? 
PENELOPE 
(not sensing the 
drift of the conversation) 
His most cherished possession? His 
violin, I guess. 
HAROLD 
And he keeps it in his apartment? 
PENELOPE 
(still at sea) 
Yes. 
HAROLD 
And no one's there now? 
PENELOPE 
I don't think so. 
HAROLD 
That's too bad. I would rather 
have him at home--to see what I'm 
going to do. 
PENELOPE 
(suddenly catching 
on, sick with fear) 
What are you going to do? 
HAROLD 
He did his best to destroy my most 

 precious possession, which is the 
high opinion women have of me. I'm 
now going to even that score. I'm 
going to break in his door and I'm 
going to smash his violin. 
PENELOPE 
No you're not! 
HAROLD 
Why not? 
PENELOPE 
Because if you do--I'll leave you. 
HAROLD 
(promptly and emotionlessly) 
Goodbye. 
Blackout. 
SCENE TWO 
SPOTLIGHT comes up on VON KONIGSWALD and WANDA JUNE, dressed 
as before. They have become close friends. 
WANDA JUNE 
We have this new club up here in 
Heaven. 
VON KONIGSWALD 
Yes, we do. 
WANDA JUNE 
We only have two members so far, 
but it's growing all the time. 
VON KONIGSWALD 
We have enough for a shuffleboard 
team. In Heaven, shuffleboard is 
everything. Hitler plays 
shuffleboard. 
WANDA JUNE 
Albert Einstein plays shuffleboard. 

 VON KONIGSWALD 
Mozart plays shuffleboard. 
WANDA JUNE 
Lewis Carroll, who wrote Alice in 
Wonderland, plays shuffleboard. 
VON KONIGSWALD 
Jack the Ripper plays shuffleboard. 
WANDA JUNE 
Walt Disney, who gave us Snow White 
and the Seven Dwarfs, plays 
shuffleboard. Jesus Christ plays 
shuffleboard. 
VON KONIGSWALD 
It was almost worth the trip--to 
find out that Jesus Christ in 
Heaven was just another guy, 
playing shuffleboard. I like his 
sense of humor, though--you know? 
He's got a blue-and-gold warm-up 
jacket he wears. You know what it 
says on the back? "Pontius Pilate 
Athletic Club." Most people don't 
get it. Most people think there 
really is a Pontius Pilate Athletic 
Club. 
WANDA JUNE 
We're going to have jackets, aren't 
we? 
VON KONIGSWALD 
You bet! "The Harold Ryan Fan 
Club." Pink, eh? With a yellow 
streak up the back. 
(both laugh) 
We got very good tailor shops up 
here. They'll make you any kind of 
uniform, any kind of sweatsuit you 
want. Judas Iscariot--he's got 
this black jacket with a skull and 

 crossbones over the heart. He 
walks around all hunched over, and 
he never looks anybody in the eye, 
and written on the back of his 
jacket are the words, "Go take a 
flying-- 
WANDA JUNE punches him in the ribs. 
VON KONIGSWALD 
leap at the moon." 
MILDRED, HAROLD's third wife, enters. She is voluptuous, 
blowzy, tough--about forty-five. She has trouble with 
alcohol. VON KONIGSWALD is expecting her. 
VON KONIGSWALD 
Aha! Hello! You're Mildred, right? 
MILDRED 
I heard you were looking for me. 
VON KONIGSWALD 
You were Harold Ryan's third wife. 
Right? 
MILDRED 
Yes. 
VON KONIGSWALD 
You want to join the Harold Ryan 
Fan Club? Wear a pink jacket with 
a yellow streak up the back? 
MILDRED 
Do I have to? Who's the little girl? 
WANDA JUNE 
Mr. Ryan just borrowed my birthday 
cake. I don't really know him. 
MILDRED 
Thought you were another wife, maybe. 
WANDA JUNE 

 I'm only ten years old. 
MILDRED 
That's what he wanted--a ten-yearold 
wife. He'd come home from a 
war or a safari, and he'd wind up 
talking to the little kids. 
WANDA JUNE 
Won't you please join our club? 
Please? 
MILDRED 
Honey--Alcoholics Anonymous takes 
all the time I've got--and Harold 
Ryan is an individual I would 
rather forget. He drove me to 
drink. He drove his first two 
wives to drink. 
VON KONIGSWALD 
Because he was cruel? 
MILDRED 
(covering WANDA 
JUNE's little ears) 
Premature ejaculation. 
VON KONIGSWALD 
Ach soooooooooo. 
MILDRED 
No grown woman is a fan of 
premature ejaculation. Harold 
would come home trumpeting and 
roaring. He would the kick the 
furniture with his boots, spit into 
corners and the fireplace. He 
would make me presents of stuffed 
fish and helmets with holes in them. 
He would tell me that he had now 
earned the reward that only a woman 
could give him, and he'd tear off 
my clothes. He would carry me into 
the bedroom, telling me to scream 

 and kick my feet. That was very 
important to him. I did it. I 
tried to be a good wife. He told 
me to imagine a herd of stampeding 
water buffalo. I couldn't do that, 
but I pretended I did. It was all 
over--ten seconds after he'd said 
the word "buffalo." Then he'd zip 
up his pants, and go outside, and 
tell true war stories to the little 
kids. Any little kids. 
VON KONIGSWALD 
That is sad. 
MILDRED 
(blankly) 
Is it? 
(pause) 
I have this theory about why men 
kill each other and break things. 
VON KONIGSWALD 
Ja? 
MILDRED 
Never mind. It's a dumb theory. I 
was going to say it was all 
sexual..but everything is 
sexual...but alcohol. 
(making peace sign) 
Peace. 
VON KONIGSWALD WANDA JUNE 
(making peace sign) (making peace sign) 
Peace. Peace. 
Blackout. 
SCENE THREE 
SILENCE. Darkness. 
WOODY WOODPECKER VOICE 
Ha ha ha ha ha! 

 (pistol shot) 
You got me, pal. 
Silence. A baby cries. Silence. The lights come up. 
LOOSELEAF 
Go to the funeral? 
HAROLD 
Of course! Not only go to it but 
go to it in full uniform! Rent a 
uniform! 
LOOSELEAF 
That's against the law, isn't it? 
I can't wear a uniform anymore. 
HAROLD 
Wear your uniform and every 
decoration, and let them despise 
you, if they dare. 
LOOSELEAF 
Alice would be absolutely tear-ass. 
HAROLD 
When I was a naive young recruit in 
Spain, I used to wonder why 
soldiers bayoneted oil paintings, 
shot the noses off of statues and 
defecated into grand pianos. I now 
understand: It was to teach 
civilians the deepest sort of 
respect for men in uniform-- 
uncontrollable fear. 
(raises his glass) 
To our women. 
LOOSELEAF 
I didn't know we had any women left. 
HAROLD 
The world is teeming with women-- 
ours to enjoy. 

 LOOSELEAF 
Every time I start thinking like 
that I get the clap. 
Lion doorbell roars. 
HAROLD 
(going to the door) 
This could be my next wife. 
He admits HERB SHUTTLE, who carries a bouquet of roses. 
SHUTTLE 
(puzzled by HAROLD) 
Hello. 
HAROLD 
How are you, honeybunch? 
SHUTTLE 
Is Penelope in? 
HAROLD 
The posies are for her? 
SHUTTLE 
I wanted to apologize. 
HAROLD 
You've come to the right man. 
SHUTTLE 
I forgot my vacuum cleaner. 
HAROLD 
I forget mine for years on end. 
SHUTTLE 
(suddenly realizing 
who HAROLD is) 
Oh my God-- 
(pause; points) 
And you are Looseleaf Harper. 
LOOSELEAF 

 Hi. 
SHUTTLE faints. 
HAROLD 
(crowing) 
It's what I've dreamed of all my 
life, Looseleaf! To have a grown 
man realize who I was--and faint! 
(to audience) 
End of Act Two. 
Blackout. 
ACT THREE 
SCENE ONE 
MILDRED enters drunkenly up aisle, sits precariously on 
apron of stage and speaks to audience. 
MILDRED 
Two days later. The afternoon of 
the day of Looseleaf Harper's 
mother-in-law's funeral. You got 
it? Two days later. 
(pause) 
You know what happened in Heaven 
today? There was a tornado. I'm 
not kidding you--there was a 
Goddamn tornado. Tore up fifty-six 
houses, a dance pavilion and a 
Ferris wheel. Drove a shuffleboard 
stick clear through a telephone 
pole. Nobody got killed. Nobody 
ever gets killed. They just bounce 
around a lot. Then they get up-- 
and start playing shuffleboard. 
(pause) 
I never saw a tornado when I was 
alive, and I grew up in Oklahoma. 
There's this big, black, funnelshaped 
cloud. Sounds like a 
railroad train without the whistle. 

 I had to come to Heaven to see a 
thing like that. A lot of people 
got photographs. 
(pause) 
After the tornado was over, a man 
had some film left and he wanted to 
take pictures of me--to use up the 
roll. I don't like people who go 
around taking pictures of everything. 
Nothing's real to some people 
unless they've got photographs. 
(pause) 
Two days later--right? 
She exits clumsily, the way she came. Silence. Lights come 
up on the living room, which has become a pigpen. LOOSELEAF, 
HAROLD, SHUTTLE and PAUL sit around a dinner of nearly raw 
beefsteak set on the coffee table. LOOSELEAF wears an illfitting 
uniform, which he has rented. 
LOOSELEAF 
I told you the uniform wouldn't help. 
HAROLD 
It helped more than you know. Down 
deep, people were deeply affected. 
LOOSELEAF 
You keep on saying "deep" and 
"deeply." I wish something good 
would happen on the surface sometime. 
SHUTTLE 
I can't get over how you guys are 
my friends. Harold Ryan and 
Looseleaf Harper are my friends. 
HAROLD 
Our pleasure. 
SHUTTLE 
Eight years you guys were together-- 
through thick and thin. 

 HAROLD 
For seven and a half of those years 
we were heavily drugged--or we 
would have been home long before 
now, believe me. We were saved 
from starvation by the Lupi-Loopo 
Indians, who fed us a strange blue 
soup. 
SHUTTLE 
Blue soup. 
HAROLD 
It sapped our will--made us 
peaceful and unenterprising. It 
was a form of chemical castration. 
We became two more sleepy Indians. 
LOOSELEAF 
(to PAUL) 
So, kid--how they hanging? Or 
don't you say that to a little kid? 
HAROLD 
He's a man. 
(to PAUL) 
Tell him you're a man. 
PAUL 
I'm a man. 
HAROLD 
We've got to do something to make 
this boy's voice change. I wonder 
if we couldn't get bull balls 
somewhere, and fry 'em up. 
(to PAUL) 
Still miss your mother? 
PAUL 
(weakly) 
No. 
HAROLD 

 You're free to go to her, if you 
want. If you'd rather be a woman 
and run with the women, just say 
the word. 
SHUTTLE 
Are we really going to find out 
where the elephants go to die? 
HAROLD 
I'd rather go to Viet Nam. 
SHUTTLE 
Would somebody please pass me the 
catsup? 
HAROLD 
What you say is, "Pass the fucking 
catsup." 
SHUTTLE 
Pass the fucking catsup. 
LOOSELEAF gives it to him. SHUTTLE dumps catsup on his steak. 
SHUTTLE 
I keep thinking about Africa--and 
the elephants. 
LOOSELEAF 
I don't think I'll go. 
HAROLD 
Of course you'll go! You're going 
to fly the helicopter. 
LOOSELEAF 
I dunno. 
HAROLD 
You're so low! Look at that 
beautiful red meat. You haven't 
touched it. 
LOOSELEAF 

 Sorry. At least you've got a place 
to come back to. I don't have a 
place to come back to anymore. 
HAROLD 
All the more reason to go to Africa. 
LOOSELEAF 
I dunno. You know. 
(pause) 
I used to really love that Alice. 
Do you know that? 
HAROLD 
You know her for what she is now-- 
garbage. 
LOOSELEAF 
I dunno. 
HAROLD 
She was always a rotten wife! She 
was against everything manly you 
ever wanted to do. 
(to SHUTTLE) 
He was the most daring test pilot 
in the country at one time, and his 
wife made him quit. She made him 
become a life insurance salesman 
instead. 
SHUTTLE 
I'd think any woman worth her salt 
would be proud to be married to a 
test pilot. I know I would. 
LOOSELEAF 
She tried to like it. She was a 
very nervous woman. 
SHUTTLE 
I could tell that at the funeral. 
(to PAUL) 
Would you please pass the fucking 

 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. 

 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! 

 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 

 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 

 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 

 (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) 

 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. 

 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. 

 LOOSELEAF 
Yeah, Jesus--but wars would be a 
lot better, I think, if guys would 
say to themselves sometimes, 
"Jesus--I'm not going to do that to 
the enemy. That's too much." You 
could have been the manufacturer of 
that violin there, even though you 
don't know how to make a violin, 
just by not busting it up. I could 
have been the father of all those 
people in Nagasaki, and the mother, 
too, just by not dropping the bomb. 
(pause) 
I sent 'em to Heaven instead--and I 
don't think there is one. 
HAROLD 
Goodbye, Looseleaf. 
LOOSELEAF walks around and gathers his things. 
LOOSELEAF 
So long, you guys. 
PENELOPE 
What will you do, Colonel? 
LOOSELEAF 
I dunno. Marry the first whore 
who's nice to me, I guess. Get a 
job in a motorcycle shop. So long, 
you guys. 
PENELOPE kisses LOOSELEAF. Everybody but HAROLD acknowledges 
his departure is some way. HAROLD turns his back. LOOSELEAF 
exits, closes door. Silence. 
SHUTTLE 
Who's going to fly our helicopter now? 
HAROLD 
(blackly, tautly) 
What? 

 SHUTTLE 
We got to get another pilot. 
HAROLD 
For what? 
SHUTTLE 
For Africa. 
HAROLD 
Do you really think that Harold 
Ryan would go to Africa with a 
vacuum cleaner salesman? 
SHUTTLE 
You invited me. 
HAROLD 
To make an ass of yourself. 
SHUTTLE 
What went wrong? 
HAROLD 
We're ahead of schedule, that's all. 
You're finding out here what you 
would have found out in Africa-- 
that you are a rabbit, born to be 
eaten alive. 
SHUTTLE 
Gee whiz-- 
HAROLD 
It would have been fun to see you 
drop your rifle and run the first 
time an elephant charged us. 
SHUTTLE 
I wouldn't drop my gun. 
HAROLD 
You're hollow, like a woman. 

 SHUTTLE 
I'm smarter than Looseleaf. 
HAROLD 
He can shoot! He can hold his 
ground! He can attack! You're in 
your proper profession right now-- 
sucking up dirt for frumpish 
housewives, closet drunkards every 
one. 
SHUTTLE 
(close to tears) 
How do you know how I'd act in Africa? 
HAROLD 
Look how you're acting now! This 
is a moment of truth, and you're 
almost crying. Slug me! 
SHUTTLE 
You're my buddy. 
HAROLD 
Out! Out! 
SHUTTLE 
No matter what you say to me, I 
still think you're the greatest guy 
I ever knew. 
HAROLD 
Out! 
SHUTTLE 
You--you aren't going to have any 
friends left, if you don't watch out. 
HAROLD 
Thank God! 
He propels SHUTTLE out the door and slams it. He faces 
PENELOPE and PAUL, speaks with malicious calm. 
HAROLD 

 Well--what have we here? A family. 
PENELOPE 
Almost a Christmas scene. 
HAROLD 
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. 
PENELOPE 
Just one favor. 
HAROLD 
Money? There's plenty of that. 
Mildred got the brewery. You'll 
probably get the baseball team. 
PENELOPE 
I want you to tell me that you 
loved me once. 
HAROLD is about to dismiss this request majestically, but 
PENELOPE cuts him off with a sharp, dangerous warning. 
PENELOPE 
I mean it! I must have that, and 
so must Paul. Tell him that he was 
conceived in love, even though you 
hate me now. Tell both of us that 
somewhere is our lives was love. 
HAROLD experiments inwardly with responses of various kinds, 
obviously saying them to himself, directing himself with his 
hands. Nothing quite satisfies him. 
HAROLD 
Testimonials of that sort are--are 
beyond my range. I don't do them 
well. 
(sincerely, not 
liking to fail in any way) 
That's a failing, I know. 
PENELOPE 
(accepting this ruefully) 
I see. 

 PAUL 
I don't care. I don't care if 
there was love or not. That's all 
right. I'm going to go to my room 
and close the door. I don't want 
to hear any more. 
PAUL exits wretchedly to his room. 
HAROLD 
See how you've upset him. He was 
so merry and hale before you came 
home. 
PENELOPE 
How unhappy he's going to be--alone 
in his room. 
HAROLD 
He'll play with his rifle, I expect. 
That will cheer him up. 
PENELOPE 
Rifle? 
HAROLD 
I bought him a twenty-two 
yesterday--on the way home from 
Hamburger Heaven. And where is the 
good doctor? Have you two 
feathered a love nest somewhere? 
PENELOPE 
He's in East St. Louis with his 
mother--visiting an aunt. 
HAROLD 
Last I heard, his mother was going 
alone. 
PENELOPE 
He's afraid of you, Harold. He 
knew you'd want to fight him. He 
doesn't know anything about 

 fighting. He hates pain. 
HAROLD 
And you, a supposedly healthy 
woman, do not detest him for his 
cowardice? 
PENELOPE 
It seems highly intelligent to me. 
HAROLD 
What kind of a country has this 
become? The men wear beads and 
refuse to fight--and the woman 
adore them. America's days of 
greatness are over. It has drunk 
the blue soup. 
PENELOPE 
Blue soup? 
HAROLD 
An Indian narcotic we were forced 
to drink. It put us in a haze--a 
honey-colored haze which was 
lavender around the edge. We 
laughed, we sang, we snoozed. When 
a bird called, we answered back. 
Every living thing was our brother 
or our sister, we thought. 
Looseleaf stepped on a cockroach 
six inches long, and we cried. We 
had a funeral that went on for five 
days--for the cockroach! I sang 
"Oh Promise Me." Can you imagine? 
Where the hell did I ever learn the 
words to "Oh Promise Me"? Looseleaf 
delivered a lecture on maintenance 
procedures for the hydraulic system 
of a B-36. All the time we were 
drinking more blue soup, more blue 
soup! Never stopped drinking blue 
soup. Blue soup all the time. 
We'd go out after food in that 

 honey-colored haze, and everything 
that was edible had a penumbra of 
lavender. 
PENELOPE 
Sounds quite beautiful. 
HAROLD 
(angered) 
Beautiful, you say? It wasn't 
life, it wasn't death--it wasn't 
anything! 
(anger still mounting) 
Beautiful? Seven years gone-- 
(snapping his fingers) 
like that, like that! Seven years 
of silliness and random dreams! 
Seven years of nothingness, when 
there could have been so much! 
PENELOPE 
Like what? 
HAROLD 
(becoming dangerously 
physical, seizing a 
battle-ax) 
Action! Interaction! Give and 
take! Challenge and response! 
He splits a coffee table with the ax. 
PAUL 
(rushing in with his 
.22 rifle at a high 
port arms) 
Mom? 
HAROLD 
What's this? 
PAUL wilts instantly, attempts to make his rifle 
inconspicuous, harmless, meaningless. 
HAROLD 

 What's this? 
PAUL 
Nothing. 
HAROLD 
That's a rifle you have? 
PAUL 
No. 
HAROLD 
Of course it is. Is it loaded? 
PAUL 
No. 
HAROLD 
Open the bolt! 
PAUL obeys. A cartridge pops out. 
HAROLD 
That's a cartridge, if I'm not 
mistaken. Gunpowder, bullet, 
cartridge case, and fulminate of 
mercury percussion cap--all set to go. 
PAUL 
I was cleaning it. 
HAROLD 
Pick up that cartridge and slip it 
back into the chamber--where it 
belongs. 
PAUL 
Gee whiz, Dad-- 
HAROLD 
Welcome to manhood, you little 
sparrowfart! Load that gun! 
PAUL 
(bleatingly) 
Dad-- 

 HAROLD 
Too late! It's man to man now. 
Protecting your mother from me, are 
you? Protect her!` 
PENELOPE 
He's a child! 
HAROLD 
With an iron penis three feet long. 
Load it, boy. 
PENELOPE 
You're begging him to kill you? 
HAROLD 
If he thinks he's man enough. 
PENELOPE 
(amazed by sudden insight) 
That's really what you want. You 
become furious when people won't 
make you dead. 
HAROLD 
I'm teaching my son to be a man. 
PENELOPE 
So he can kill you. You hate your 
own life that much. You beg for a 
hero to kill you. 
HAROLD 
I plan to live one hundred years! 
PENELOPE 
No you don't. 
HAROLD 
If that's the case--what's to 
prevent my killing myself? 
PENELOPE 
Honor, I suppose. 

 HAROLD 
What a handsome word. 
PENELOPE 
(wonderingly) 
But it's all balled up in your head 
with death. The highest honor is 
death. When you talk of these 
animals, one by one, you don't just 
talk of killing them. You honored 
them with death. Harold--it is not 
honor to be killed. 
HAROLD 
If you've lived a good life, fought 
well-- 
PENELOPE 
It's still just death, the absence 
of life--no honor at all. It's 
worse than the blue soup by far-- 
that nothingness. To you, though, 
it's the honor that crowns them all. 
HAROLD 
May I continue with the rearing of 
my son? 
(to PAUL) 
Load that gun! 
PAUL shakes his head. 
HAROLD 
Load it! 
PAUL refuses. 
HAROLD 
Then speak, by God! Can you fight 
with words? 
PAUL 
I don't want to fight you. 

 HAROLD 
Get mad! Tell me you don't like 
the way I treat your mother! Tell 
me you wish I'd never come home! 
PAUL 
(weakly) 
It's your house, Dad. 
HAROLD 
(throwing up his hands) 
Everybody simply evaporates! 
(including the 
audience, inviting it 
to share his indignation) 
There are guest issues to be fought 
out here--or to be argued, at least. 
The enemy, the champion of all who 
oppose me, is in East St. Louis 
with his mother and his aunt! I 
have so far done battle with a 
woman and a child and a violin. 
PENELOPE 
The old heroes are going to have to 
get used to this, Harold--the new 
heroes who refuse to fight. 
They're trying to save the planet. 
There's no time for battle, no 
point to battle anymore. 
HAROLD 
I feel mocked, insulted, with no 
sort of satisfaction in prospect. 
We don't have to fight with steel. 
I can fight with words. I'm not an 
inarticulate ape, you know, who 
grabs a rock for want of a 
vocabulary. Call him up in East St. 
Louis, Penelope. Tell him to come 
here. 
PENELOPE 
No. 

 HAROLD 
(emptily, turning away) 
No. 
Pause. He contemplates PAUL. 
HAROLD 
And my son, the only son of Harold 
Ryan--he's going to grow up to be a 
vanisher, too? 
PENELOPE 
I don't know. I hope he never 
hunts. I hope he never kills 
another human being. 
HAROLD 
(to PAUL, quietly) 
You hope this, too? 
PAUL 
I don't know what I hope. But I 
don't think you care what I hope, 
anyway. You don't know me. 
(indicating PENELOPE) 
You don't know her, either. I 
don't think you know anybody. You 
talk to everybody just the same. 
HAROLD 
I'm talking to you gently now. 
PAUL 
Yeah. But it's going to get loud 
again. 
PENELOPE 
He's right, Harold. To you, we're 
simply pieces in a game--this one 
labeled "woman," that one labeled 
"son." There is no piece labeled 
"enemy" and you are confused. 
Lion doorbell roars. PAUL goes to answer it. 

 HAROLD 
There won't be anybody out there. 
That's the new style: nobody anywhere. 
PAUL, aghast, admits NORBERT WOODLY. WOODLY is high as a 
kite on his own adrenaline. 
PENELOPE 
(aghast, chokingly) 
Get out of here. 
WOODLY 
It's really that bad? 
He comes farther into the room, bravely. 
PENELOPE 
You fool, you fool. 
WOODLY 
Oh--look at the poor, crucified 
violin, would you? 
HAROLD 
It died for your sins. 
WOODLY 
This little corpse is intended as a 
lesson? 
HAROLD 
There's a certain amount of 
information there. 
WOODLY 
Lest we forget how cruel you are. 
PENELOPE 
(moving to the telephone) 
I'm going to call the police. 
HAROLD 
(frighteningly) 
Don't! 

 WOODLY 
I agree. 
WOODLY closes the door. PENELOPE backs away from the phone, 
drifts toward PAUL, who still holds his rifle. 
HAROLD 
This is man to man. 
WOODLY 
It's healer to killer. Is that the 
same thing? 
HAROLD 
What brought you back? 
WOODLY 
The same hairy, humorless old gods 
who move you from hither to yon. 
"Honor, " if you like. 
HAROLD 
(to PENELOPE) 
He's a champion after all. 
WOODLY 
Of the corpses and cripples you 
create for our instruction--when 
all we can learn from them is this: 
how cruel you are. 
PENELOPE 
This is suicide. 
(to PAUL) 
Go get the police. 
HAROLD 
Stop! 
PAUL stops. 
HAROLD 
There's going to be no bloodshed 
here. I know how he'll fight--the 
only way he can fight: with words. 

 The truth. 
(to WOODLY) 
Am I correct? 
WOODLY 
Yes. 
HAROLD 
I can defeat him with anything from 
flavored toothpicks to siege 
howitzers. But he got it into his 
little head that he could come here 
and demolish Harold Ryan with words. 
The truth! Correct? 
WOODLY 
Correct. 
HAROLD 
What an hallucination! 
(laughs) 
Oh, dear, dear, dear, dear. Oh 
dearie me. 
WOODLY 
You haven't heard me yet. 
HAROLD 
You intend to crack my eardrums 
with your voice? Will I bleed from 
my every orifice? Who will clean 
up this awful mess? 
WOODLY 
We'll find out now, won't we? 
PENELOPE 
No, we won't. No matter how it 
begins, it will end in death. 
Because it always does. Isn't that 
always how it ends, Harold--in death? 
HAROLD 
There has to be a threat of some 
sort, nobility of some sort, 

 glamour of some sort, sport of some 
sort. These elements are lacking. 
WOODLY 
You're a filthy, rotten bastard. 
HAROLD 
(pretending to be wounded) 
Oooooo. That hurt. 
WOODLY 
You're old--so old. 
HAROLD 
Now who's being cruel? 
WOODLY 
A living fossil! Like the 
cockroaches and the horseshoe crabs. 
HAROLD 
We do survive, don't we? You're 
going to have to apologize, of 
course, for calling me a bastard. 
That's a matter of form--not 
allowing you or anybody to call me 
a bastard. No rush about that. 
Just remember to apologize sometime 
soon. 
PENELOPE takes the rifle from PAUL. 
WOODLY 
You're a son of a bitch. 
HAROLD 
Yes--well--uh--that's another one 
of those statements which more or 
less automatically requires an 
apology. Whenever you feel like it. 
It's sort of like turning off an 
alarm clock that's ringing loudly. 
Your apology turns off the alarm. 
PENELOPE 

 (leveling the gun) 
I'm turning off the alarm. I'm 
turning off everything. 
HAROLD 
Ah! The lady is armed. 
PENELOPE 
I want you to get out of here, 
Norbert. Harold--I want you to sit 
down in the chair, and not lift a 
finger until Norbert is gone. 
HAROLD 
(to WOODLY) 
Whoever has the gun, you see, gets 
to tell everybody else exactly what 
to do. It's the American way. 
PENELOPE 
I mean it! 
HAROLD 
Then you'd better fix your bayonet, 
because there aren't any bullets in 
the gun. 
PENELOPE 
(to PAUL) 
Where's the bullet? 
PAUL makes no move to help. 
HAROLD 
Help your mother find the bullet. 
PENELOPE 
(to PAUL, pointing to 
the floor) 
There it is. Give it to me. 
PAUL obeys. 
PENELOPE 
How do I load? 

 HAROLD 
(to PAUL) 
Load it for her. 
PAUL shakily obeys. 
HAROLD 
Cock it, too. 
PAUL obeys. 
HAROLD 
Give it to her. 
PAUL obeys. 
PENELOPE 
All right! Am I exceedingly 
dangerous now? 
HAROLD 
The National Safety Council would 
be appalled. 
PENELOPE 
Then listen to me. 
(angrily) 
You're both disgusting--with your 
pride, your pride. 
(to WOODLY) 
I hate you for coming here--like a 
federal marshal in a western film. 
I loved you when you stayed away. 
But here you are now--high noon in 
the Superbowl! You fool, you fool. 
WOODLY 
Everything's going to be beautiful. 
PENELOPE 
You fake! You're no better than 
the dumbest general in the Pentagon. 
(pause) 
You're not going to beat Harold. 

 You're not going to beat anybody. 
You're not going to stay here, 
either--yammering and taunting 
until you're most gloriously killed. 
Go home! 
HAROLD 
She's right, Norbert--go home. 
WOODLY 
I haven't said all I have to say. 
PENELOPE 
Out! 
WOODLY 
I haven't told you, Harold, how 
comical I think you are. 
HAROLD 
(hit squarely, 
absolutely unable to forgive) 
Comical? 
PENELOPE 
(to HAROLD) 
Sit down or I'll shoot! 
HAROLD goes over to her, easily takes the gun away) 
HAROLD 
Give me that Goddamn thing! Now 
get out of here, or I might kill 
you. Who knows? 
PENELOPE 
(terrified) 
You've killed women? 
HAROLD 
Seventeen of them--eleven by 
accident. March! Move! 
(to PAUL) 
You, too! 
PENELOPE and PAUL move toward the front door. 

 PENELOPE 
Norbert--you come, too. 
(to HAROLD) 
Let him go, Harold. Let him go. 
HAROLD 
Of course he can go--if he'll just 
go down on his hands and knees for 
a moment--and promise me that he 
does not find me comical in the 
least degree. 
PENELOPE 
Do it, Norbert. 
WOODLY 
Hands and knees, you say? 
HAROLD 
And terror, if you don't mind. 
PENELOPE 
Do it! 
WOODLY 
(to PENELOPE, simply, 
decisively, unafraid) 
Goodbye. 
HAROLD 
(before she can 
protest any more) 
Goodbye! Goodbye! 
He bellies and bullies PENELOPE and PAUL out the front door. 
HAROLD 
Get the police! No time to lose! 
He slams the door, turns to WOODLY. 
HAROLD 
You're in one hell of a jam. You 
realize that? 

 WOODLY 
I'm high as a kite. 
HAROLD 
Glands. You're supposed to be 
happy when you die. Call me 
comical again. 
WOODLY 
You're a clown. You're a clown who 
kills--but you're a clown. 
HAROLD 
I love you! Have a cigar! 
WOODLY 
(ignoring the cigar) 
Evolution has made you a clown-- 
with a cigar. Simple butchers like 
you are obsolete! 
HAROLD 
I'm to be left behind--in primordial 
ooze? 
WOODLY 
If you're at home in the ooze, and 
nowhere else. 
HAROLD 
This is going to become very 
physical. Are you prepared for that? 
WOODLY 
You're not such a creature of the 
ooze that you'd hurt an unarmed man. 
HAROLD 
I'm an honorable clown? 
WOODLY 
King Arthur. 
HAROLD 

 You hope. 
WOODLY 
In any event, I will not beg for 
mercy. 
HAROLD 
No quarter asked. 
(taking a sword) 
No quarter given. 
WOODLY 
Don't you laugh even inwardly at 
the heroic balderdash you spew? 
HAROLD 
(offering sword) 
Cut me open. Find out. 
WOODLY 
I've struck my blow. 
HAROLD 
With spittle? 
WOODLY 
I've poisoned you. 
HAROLD 
(pointing at WOODLY 
in horror) 
Lucretia Borgia? 
(looking around frantically) 
Something I drank or touched? 
(understanding) 
You refused a cigar. That's it! 
Potassium cyanide in the humidor! 
Treacherous lover of peace! 
WOODLY 
I put a poisoned thought in your 
head. Even now that poison is 
seeping into every lobe of your 
mind. It's saying, "Obsolete, 
obsolete, obsolete," and, "Clown, 

 clown, clown." 
HAROLD 
Poison. 
WOODLY 
You have a very good mind, or I 
wouldn't have come back. That mind 
is now asking itself, cleverly and 
fairly, "Is Harold Ryan really a 
clown?" And the answer is, "Yes." 
HAROLD 
(touching his 
forehead experimentally) 
I--I really must congratulate you. 
Something is happening in there. 
WOODLY 
You can never take yourself 
seriously again! Look at all the 
creatures you've protected us from! 
Did you shoot them on the elevator, 
as they were on their way up here 
to eat us alive? 
HAROLD 
(blankly, as though 
in a dream) 
No. 
WOODLY 
The magic root you gave me--I had 
it analyzed. It was discovered by 
a Harvard botanist in 1893! He 
explored your famous jungle for 
five years, armed with nothing but 
kindness, a talent for languages, 
and a pocketknife. 
HAROLD 
(blankly) 
I see. 
WOODLY 

 You aren't going to hurt me. You 
aren't going to hurt anybody any 
more. Any violent gesture will 
seem ridiculous--to yourself! 
HAROLD 
(quietly) 
Don Quixote. 
WOODLY 
My violin is avenged! 
HAROLD 
Something seems to have happened to 
my self-respect. 
WOODLY 
And the hell with it. It was so 
tragically irrelevant, so 
preposterously misinformed. 
HAROLD 
The new hero is you. 
WOODLY 
I hate crowds, and I have no 
charisma-- 
HAROLD 
You're too modest. 
WOODLY 
But the new hero will be a man of 
science and of peace--like me. 
He'll disarm you, of course. No 
more guns, no more guns. 
HAROLD 
Was I ever of use? 
WOODLY 
Never. For when you began to kill 
for the fun of it, you became the 
chief source of agony of mankind. 

HAROLD picks up the rifle, considers it, offers it to WOODLY. 
HAROLD 
Here. Finish the job. 
WOODLY 
I'm utterly satisfied. 
HAROLD 
You're making a mistake. Obsolete 
old carnivores like me are most 
dangerous when wounded. You've 
wounded me. 
WOODLY 
More clowning! Don't you see? 
HAROLD 
We never quit fighting until we're 
dead. 
WOODLY 
You'd be killing a friend. Don't 
you know how much I like you? 
HAROLD 
I'm going to shoot you now. 
WOODLY 
No! 
HAROLD 
My self-respect is gone--and my 
soldier's honor with it. It is now 
very easy for me to shoot an 
unarmed man. 
WOODLY 
New dignity can be yours--as a 
merciful man. You can change! 
HAROLD 
Like the saber-toothed tiger. 
WOODLY 

 (sickened) 
Oh God--you're really going to kill 
me. 
HAROLD 
It won't hurt as much as the sting 
of a bumblebee. Heaven is very 
much like Paradise, they say. 
You'll like it there. 
WOODLY 
Can I beg for mercy--on my knees? 
HAROLD 
If you want to be found that way. 
WOODLY 
What is this thing that kills me? 
HAROLD 
Man, as man was meant to be--a 
vengeful ape who murders. He will 
soon be extinct. It's time, it's 
time. 
WOODLY 
Don't shoot. 
HAROLD 
I've enjoyed being man. 
He aims the rifle tentatively. 
WOODLY 
No. 
(goes down on his knees) 
No. 
HAROLD 
Get up. 
WOODLY 
No. 
HAROLD 
Have it your way. We'd both be 

 better off dead now. 
HAROLD begins to squeeze the trigger, falters, lowers the 
rifle. 
HAROLD 
Can't do it. 
WOODLY 
Thank God. 
HAROLD 
Crawl home. 
He turns his back on WOODLY, who stands shakily. 
WOODLY 
Thank you--for my life. 
HAROLD 
It's trash now, like mine. 
WOODLY 
New lives begin! 
HAROLD 
Somewhere in this city. Not here, 
not here. Tell Penelope I loved 
her--in my clownish way. And Paul. 
Tell him to be a healer, by all means. 
WOODLY 
What are you going to do? 
HAROLD 
Use the sanitary facilities, if I may. 
WOODLY 
Leave the rifle here. 
HAROLD 
I'll put it in Paul's room, where 
it belongs. 
WOODLY 
Give me your word of honor that 

 that's all you're going to do. 
HAROLD 
For what it's worth now, Harold 
Ryan, the clown, gives his sacred 
word. 
HAROLD exits into corridor. WOODLY looks after him 
helplessly, apprehensively. Silence. 
WOODLY 
Harold? 
VON KONIGSWALD, MILDRED, and WANDA JUNE enter from the side 
stealthily. VON KONIGSWALD, pantomimes that his companions 
are to be quiet and to listen for something wonderful. All 
ghosts cup their hands to their ears. 
WOODLY 
Harold? 
There is a shot offstage. VON KONIGSWALD is delighted. 
MILDRED is sickened. WANDA JUNE is dazed. WOODLY collapses 
in grief. HAROLD enters from the corridor, shaking his head. 
HAROLD 
I missed. 
VON KONIGSWALD expresses disappointment. MILDRED covers her 
face. WANDA JUNE sucks her thumb. 
HAROLD 
The end. 
Curtain. 

