Yogi Bear in "Another Day, Another Park"

EXT, A FLORIDA STATE PARK - DAY

Yogi Bear and Ranger Smith on a nature trail, looking around at scrub pines and palmettos.

YOGI: Wow, Ranger Smith. I’m sure glad you talked us into this field trip. This Florida forest sure is a fascinating eco-system!

RANGER SMITH: It sure is, Yogi. I – 

Eyes go wide. Stops in his tracks.

RANGER SMITH: Oh God. Don’t look, Yogi.

YOGI: What? Oh no! 

Now Yogi sees the horrible scene.

Boo-Boo sprawled on the ground, the poor little guy's chest splattered open by a bloody Sam Peckinpah-style shotgun blast. 

YOGI: Boo-boo!

Runs to him.

BOO-BOO: I-is it bad, Yogi?

YOGI: Nah. Just a scratch

BOO-BOO: F** you, Yogi. You’re a lying mother****

YOGI: I sure am, Boo-boo.

BOO-BOO: It’s c-cold, Yogi.

Yogi holds him.

YOGI: Who did this, Boo-Boo.

BOO-BOO: Hunters, Yogi. H –

Boo-Boo buys the farm. Eyes turn to cartoon Xs. His spirit ascends to the place dead cartoon characters go.

Yogi howls, stands clutching Boo-Boo’s body. Gently sets him down. Looks around.  Then smiles, evilly. Spying --

The Hunters, now ironically enjoying a picnic, hunkered down near a stand of cypress, just chomping away, weapons conveniently out of reach, a lifeless Wally Gator strapped to the SUV behind them.  

Yogi's eyes narrow to slits. He rears back and extends his claws, roaring in feral rage. Advances --

Ranger Smith puts out his hand to his chest and stops him.

RANGER SMITH: No, Yogi. That would be wrong.

Cocks shotgun, hands it to him.

RANGER SMITH: Use this.

Carrie White's Love Boat Cruise

EXT, LOVE BOAT DECK - DAY

Sometime in 1977. The Love Boat is still docked, but getting ready to cast off. The crew's been assembled on deck. They're waiting for the Captain to speak.

FRED: You firing somebody, Captain?

CAPT. STUBING: No. I’m not firing anybody.

ISAAC: Somebody here a murder suspect?

They laugh.

CAPT: No, of course not.

ISAAC: (clowning around) You’re probably wondering why I …

The laugh again.

CAPT: Quiet! Everybody! This is serious.

ISAAC: Must be. You sweating, Captain.

JULIE: What’s this all about?

CAPT: I'm trying to tell you what this is all about. It’s somebody on this boat. Passenger.

FRED: Who?

CAPT: I’ll show you. Don’t turn your heads. Just look, then look away. Try not to be obvious.

DOC: Don’t let this mystery person know we're looking, huh?

CAPT: You got it, Doc.

ISAAC: Where we supposed to look?

CAPT: I’ll nod my head in that direction. Just a glance, OK? Here goes.

Captain Stubing nods his head towards the pool. They all instantly whip their heads and stare in that direction like a bunch of rubberneckers gawking at a car wreck.

CAPT: Oh God, don’t look directly, look back, look back, what did I just say?

Gasping. Fighting a panic attack.

ISAAC: Man, you worried.

VICKI: Yeah. Take a breath, dad.

He gets it together.

CAPT: OK, OK. Did everybody see her? The girl by the pool?

ISAAC: The skinny white kid.

CAPT: Right. The skinny white kid. Please don't look at her. But nod if you all saw her.

They all nod.

CAPT: Well, that poor kid had a rough time at the prom. Now it’s our job to give Carrie a good time.

ISAAC: Hold up. You talking the prom burned down in Maine someplace? She that Carrie?

CAPT: Don’t point, please. Yes, Ike. That Carrie.

VICKI: Carrie White!?

CAPT: Shhh!

VICKI: Wow. There's this book out about her. She blows stuff up with her mind. Tele ... Tele Something or other.

CAPT: Not a good time sweetie.

ISAAC: Uh-uh. Can't be Carrie. News say she died.

CAPT: Disinformation from the Shop.

ISAAC: What Shop?

CAPT: The one you don’t ask questions about.

DOC: There's no damn question! You know what to do, Captain. Get her the hell off this boat. Kick her off.

ISAAC: Man, that Carrie White. You try to kick her off, she rip you half

DOC. I don't mean literally kick her. Tell her one her boyfriends is waiting in the Crab Shack.

CAPT: Bad idea, Doc. Our friends in the Shop …

DOC: The Shop you're not supposed to talk about?

CAPT: Yes, Doc. That Shop. If we kick Carrie off, they’re not going to like it.

ISAAC: How you know all this?

CAPT: The Shop sent a representative … he told me. Then he got off and Carrie got on.

ISAAC: OK. Kick or trick. We get Carrie off the boat. The Shop don’t like it. What happens?

CAPT: "There will be consequences." He kept saying that.

JULIE: What consequences?

CAPT: Well.  See those buildings along the dock?

VICKI: Can we look this time?

CAPT: Yes, sweetie.

ISAAC: Man ask if you see, that means you can look.

VICKI: Wow, it looks like Christmas!

ISAAC: You dumb as rocks, girl.

FRED: No, she's right. Something's reflecting the sun. Like a bunch of little mirrors.

VICKI: It's shiny! 

JULIE: What are we looking at?

CAPT: Rifle scopes. There’s a team of snipers on every roof top.

ISAAC: How you know that, Cap? Scary man from the magical Shop tell you?

CAPT: Yeah, that’s what he told me.

ISAAC: Ain't my fault if you believed him Capt. No disrespect but -- Man, shit you talking like a bad spy movie. No damn logic, but you got us believing it. We all shaking in fear of the almighty "Shop" with they snipers and shit and some badass representative ordering you around. Why? They using up all these resources to put that girl on a cruise ship? Damn sight easier to kill her, know what I'm saying?

CAPT: Evidently they can't. They did wipe her memory. But they're not sure ...

ISAAC: Oh, they not sure? Sounds like bullcrap to me.

CAPT: It did to me, too, Ike. Look at the life preserver.

VICKI: Yeah. You can look, Ike. Dad says it's OK.

Isaac smirks at her stupidity, looks.

CAPT: What do you see?

ISAAC: Life preserver. Up there yesterday. Probably be there tomorrow nobody falls off the boat.

CAPT: What’s in the center?

ISAAC: Three neat little holes.

Another appears with a faint "Pop."

ISAAC: Four. (pause) Man, that's some nice shooting.

CAPT: I watched the first three shots go in about an hour ago.

FRED: Knew where to look?

CAPT: Uh-huh. The representative called me on the radio phone right after he left. "Keep your eyes on the center of the life preserver" Three seconds later -- pop, pop, pop. Must've used a silencer.

ISAAC: Shit for real, huh?

Captain Stubing nods.

ISAAC: OK. So what’s the deal? What exactly did the man tell you?

CAPT: If Carrie gets off, we die. If anybody leaves, we die. If we don’t cast off, we die. They want us out to sea.

ISAAC: Then what?

CAPT: The representative didn’t get that far.

DOC: The passengers are going to panic.

JULIE: I'll keep 'em happy, Cap. It's my job.

CAPT: I'm sure you could, Julie. (looks at his watch) But it won't be a problem.

At the exact same instant, the passengers all stand up from their deck chairs and exit their staterooms. They silently assemble in neat rows and walk down the gangplank in orderly fashion. Except for Carrie, who's obliviously sunning by the pool.

VICKI: Dad! I got an idea. Maybe we should, like, call for help?

Captain Stubing shakes his head ruefully. Isaac laughs.

ISAAC: Yeah. "Call for help." He ain't never thought of that.

JULIE: Radio silence, Captain?

CAPT: Yeah, once the harbor master clears us. No chatter in the meantime. One word gets out, they kill our families.

JULIE: Kinda what I thought.

ISAAC: We fucking dead, man.

CAPT: Hey, hey. Let's try to stay positive, people. Just keep Carrie happy, OK?

DOC: How, Captain?

ISAAC: Yeah.What we supposed to do?

CAPT: Anything Carrie wants, people. Anything she wants.

Vicki raises her hand, waves it furiously.

VICKI: Dad! Dad!

CAPT: Yes, sweetie? 

VICKI: The book also said she can read minds.

CAPT. STUBING: She sure can, Vicki.

ISAAC: Best not be thinking bout killing the bitch, huh?

CAPT: Best not. Or thinking the word "bitch," heh. (claps hands) OK. Let's keep it simple, people. Keep Carrie happy, think happy thoughts and keep smiling.

VICKI: Like that Twilight Zone episode with Billy Mumy?

CAPT. STUBING: Yea, sweetie. Exactly like that. Please excuse me ...

He smiles and walks away.

VICKI: Don't go, dad.

ISAAC: He the captain, girl. Gotta take the wheel. Ship don't pilot itself.

Over by the pool, Carrie stands up and looks around. Starts waving her hand.

CARRIE: Excuse me .. excuse me. (shouts) Hello?!

They all look.

CARRIE: Sorry to bother y'all, but my waiter seems to have dropped off the face of the earth. (holds up glass) I don't want to make no fuss, but this here Co'Cola tastes more like iced tea. Any of y'all...

They all run to her, grinning like fools.

The Love Boat toots, and heads out to sea.

No Fair

As a kid, I lived about ten blocks south of the Sarasota County Fair grounds. This being the era before airc oinditioning (or the era my parents finally shoelled out for air conditioning) I slept with the windows open. The thumbing bum ping sounds of hte fair woul,.d raor int through the my windows at night. Sound carries, and my ears wree about 100 moire acute in those days. The perioidic screams pof peolple going up and down the sine waves of the roller coaster, the rattling tracks, the pitchment saying alive alive, the freaking callipoe music. Gorsh, it all sounds like fun. My imagination painted lovely pictures. The actyual fair itself was always disappointing.

The swining 60s was a lot like that. THe big party just down the street. Woodstock. Frank Zappa and the GTOs freaking out in Laruel canyon. Ken  KEsey and his pals on the bus. A distorted picture to b e sure, filtered through the Life's camera lenses and various cynical documentarians strio,llng up and down Haight Ashbury asking stupid quewstions about the hippie experience. But my head resonbatinged with the thunmping, buympoing sounds of the fair I was a little too young to snerak into.

So, in 1973 I stride into colledge in no longer fashionable blue jeans and long hair. It's UVA,m wahoo-wah. EVerybody else is wearing sperry topsiders and Izod lacoste t-shirts. The preppy look. I think it was born there. Buncha neat sonsabitches, damnit. I felt like Pigpen on the edges of the dance in Peanuts raising a cloud of dust.

No hippies. Anywhere in sight.

Except, uh, there's this one table. Right smack dab in the college quadrangle. Sorry, UVA doesn't have a quadranbgle. The lawn." YEp. Sorry.

Two scruffy bearded guys in denim workshiurts and one girl in a peasant bl;ouse with straight (perhaps ironed) hair hanging down below the edge oif the table. Maybe one year older than I was, but they looked ancient. Fossils. Artifacts of another time.

LaRouchies.

That there being the slang term applied to an obscure sect of proto-commie semi-Socialists emroiled in the ravings of a left-lkeaning trust fund baby who later turned right wing. Lyndon LaRouche, being the man in question. Out of his own deepo pockets, he printed up a monthly Daily Worker style tabloid paper what was insulting know as the LaRouchie paper. A stack of same was laid out on the table. I pikcked one up.

Whereupon my cartoonist's eyes were immediately drawn to the editorial cartoon.

The image (gawd-- talk abouty opriginality!) was of a giant capitalist octopus, it's tentacles encircling the b log. Its various appendages limbs whate er were labeled STANDARD OIL, EXXON, DOWN CHEMICAL, etc, etc. A Satanic uncle sam posed the question, "What more could you ask for?" The evil capitalist octopus replied, "Nothing." But -- in the extreme lower right corern of cartoon -- was a circle wherein the ciogar-smoking face of Castro appeared. Tjhe wprd bibb;re saod" "Void where prohibited by law.

Meat the Animals!

Spoiler alert. Seriously. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but human beings kill animals and eat them. Old news, I know, but at age 7 I didn’t know it. Nope. Hadn’t processed the facts. Hadn’t faced the awful truth. Not that I was stupid. Intellectually …

Stop. Before we get into it, let's set the clock back to the scene of my freaking childhood. 1960s Florida. Astronauts, civil rights movement, Cuban Missile Crisis, Jackie Gleason. Get the picture? Great. Let's get back to how smart I was ...

OK. Intellectually, I resembled the bright, scrawny chicken kid in the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons. Classic egghead. Bright. But no sense of how the world really worked. Take meat, for example. The meat/animal continuum. There's a connection. Obviously. But what? We kill animals and eat 'em, dumbass. No, no, no. It's gotta be something else ...

So, I mulled this enigma over in my mind. For weeks. Then finally cooked up a clever explanation: The meat they sell at Publix has the same names as animals on farms! But the "chicken" that pecks for corn and the "chicken" in Colonel Sanders' bucket are two different things. Crazy coincidence, huh?

Sure, kid. Makes sense, if you think about it.

So I thought about it.

And one fine day, I shared my solution at the Fugate family dinner table. Just sorta blurted it out. Shouting at the top of my voice like Spock in an early Star Trek episode ...

“Hey! Words are funny! Like homophones!"

Little Sister's look said Shut up and die you stupid showoff. Dad, the angry young Southern novelist who actually resembled Foghorn Leghorn, looked skeptical and on sudden high alert, like a boxer waiting for the next sucker punch. Ah, sweet Christ on a crutch. Marty's got that crazed look in his eyes. This is going to be bad. Where in the hell is he going with this? Mom, the beloved teacher, looked impressed. My 7-year-old kid has a 10th grade vocabulary! Yeah, I did. And I knew damn well that Mom and Dad knew what "homophone" meant. But that wasn't going to stop me from telling 'em what they already knew. Before sharing my brainy bullcrap.

"Homophones? That's like ... you know how like sometimes a word means one thing but it also means something completely different? Like, there’s 'orange' the color and there’s 'orange' the fruit. Or lamb. There’s 'lamb' at the grocery store. And then there’s 'lambs' on the farm.”

Dad, cynical Southern philosopher that he was, just sorta looked at me with half-lidded Robert Mitchum eyes from his throne-like chair at the head of the table. You can't bullshit the bullshitter. No, you can't. Dad knew exactly what I was doing. Yeah. Dad sussed me out. Marty's a sensitive soul. On that basis, he's rationalizing the fact that we kill and eat our animal friends. Dad instantly knew it. And he just kept looking at me with those all-knowing eyes …

Then started going, “Hmmm-hmmm-hmmm.” Just this little understated laugh. “Hmmm-hmmm-hmmm.”

Dad’s thinking: Aw, son. You still think the world’s a happy place. Poor idealistic, naive kid. You’re doomed, you know that?

“Hmmm-hmmm-hmmm.”

Up to now, Dad thought this scene was pretty funny.  

Hmmm-hmmm. Marty thinks lambs on farms and lamb with mint jelly are two different things. Damn funny, in a cutesy horseshit kind of way. I should sent in the quote to "Kids Say the Darndest Things." Do they pay for that cornball crap? Can I get him to say it twice?

So Dad's chuckling, and adding up the big check from Art Linkletter. Then he suddenly felt the weighty significance of our discussion. The disillusion he'd have to hand me. The dirty looks from Mom. The big stink hanging in the air.

Dad stopped chuckling. Then finally spoke.

“Well, son. I’m sorry to disillusion you. But the "lamb" we eat from the grocery store and the "lambs" on the farm are exactly the same thing.”

I looked at Dad with bigass saucer eyes. My lower lip started quivering.

"Really?"

"Really."

"No ..."

“Yes. Listen ... Son, I spent a fair portion of my formative years on the family farm. I can assure you from personal experience that meat doesn’t come from the grocery store."

"No?

"No, son. Meat comes from animals.”

“A-animals?”

Dad doesn't answer right away. Just looked at me again. Sizing me up with those X-Ray eyes. Mom's still looking at him, her eyes flashing like Goldfinger's laser: Back off! Don't destroy his sensitive soul, you jerk! But Dad ignored her. Then suddenly leaned in like a scary father figure in a John Kricfalusi cartoon. Got right in my face with his Kirk Douglas chin. 

“Yes, son. Animals. Chicken comes from chickens, beef comes from cows, lamb comes from lambs.”

“Soylent Green is people” would’ve had the same effect on me.

Dad figured I was ready for the awful truth. But Dad was wrong.

My saucer eyes got bigger. Tears gushed. I started howling like Sam Kinison.

“Agggghhhh! So … meat is dead animals? No! Agggghhhh! We eat dead animals?”

“Yes, son. That’s one way to put it.”

Kid’s gotta face facts sometime, right?

Yeah, I faced the facts. My response was: “Agghhhh! Agghhhhhhhhh! Agghhhhhhhhh!”

Dad, philosopher king that he was and still is, instantly backpedalled. Mom's look of intense hate probably influenced his decision.

“No, no, no, son. You misunderstand me! Farmers don’t kill animals.”

“Yes they do! Agghhhhh! They do -- you said! Agghhhhh! Farmers kill animals and cut ‘em up … and …” Choke.

Like a character in an EC horror comic, I choked before I could get the words out.

So Dad got his words in.

“No, son. No, no, no. Please believe me, son. Please. Look me in the eyes."

So I looked him in the eyes. 

And Dad said ...

"On my word of honor: Farmers don’t kill animals.”

“They don’t?”

Aw, so damn trusting. This son of mine. He'll believe any damn thing I say.

“No."

"W-what do they do then?"

"Well. You know how they shear sheep?”

“Y-yeah, dad. Mrs. Roberts. She showed us a film about Australia." Sob. "These -- these sheepherder guys were cutting off wool and stuff with this big electric razor."

"Did they hurt the sheep?"

I shook my head no. Dad clapped his hands in triumph.

“Well, that’s exactly what they do with meat!”

“They do? You mean the farmers?”

“Of course, son.” Trying not to laugh. "Farmers ..."

"You mean ranchers," says my insanely bright little Sister. Five years old. Reading Little House on the Prairie or Cross Creek or some stupid girly book with ranchers in it.

"Well, farmers, ranchers ... "

Sister rolled her eyes and started sulking. Mom did, too. She looked around the table for a Chianti bottle, a rolling pin, or anything she could hit Dad in the head with but not kill him. Nothing really worked, so Mom got up, went into the kitchen and started clattering stuff around. Then Dad said ...

"The point is, cutting off the meat doesn't kill the animals. It doesn't even hurt."

"Why not?" I asked. 

Dead serious question. Really wanting to believe there's no slaughter behind my sandwiches. Just buying this thing lock, stock and barrel. And Dad's happy to sell me.

"Well, son. You see ... Over centuries and centuries, farm animals have been bred to have special meat pouches on their sides.”

“Their sides? You mean … their flanks?”

“Flanks, sides, yes. Well, as I was saying, the farmers cut the meat from the sides ….”

“Does it hurt?”

“No, no, no. It’s just like shearing, son. It doesn’t hurt one bit. In fact, it hurts if they don’t cut the meat off!”

“Like a cow that has to be milked?”

“Exactly, son. Long story short, the farmer -- or sometimes the rancher -- cuts off the meat pouch, sprays on Mercurochrome, and the animal runs off to play. A few weeks later, the animals grow more meat and the farmer or rancher repeats the process.”

“OK. I guess that makes sense.”

“It makes perfect sense, son. Hmmm-hmmm. Now eat your liver.”

So that was that. Mom came back from the kitchen. Dad spent the rest of the dinner talking about how that snotnose Kennedy punk was taking the country to hell in a handcart. I choked down Mom’s special concoction of liver and onions. Told myself that it wasn’t a segment of some dead animal. Or Prometheus' organ. Yeah. I believed Dad’s happy story.

But not for long.

Smart little bastard that I was, I looked up “meat” in the school library the next day. The text skirted the issue. “Meat production,” blah-blah-blah. But the pictures laid it all out. Guys with cleavers and bloody aprons. Animals, or what was left of former animals, hanging on hooks in assembly line factories. Smart little bastard that I was, I quickly figured out that Dad had lied to me and handed me a bullcrap story because I was screaming my head off and ruining dinner. The harsh realization finally came ...

Real farms didn’t resemble the happy farms in kids’ books. “Lamb” and “lamb” ain’t like “orange” and “orange.” Lamb the meat is lamb the animal, kid. Meat is dead animals. Farmers kill ‘em and cut ‘em up. Then we eat ‘em. Then you eat 'em.

If this was a happy PC story, it’d end with, “After that, I never ate meat again.” The truth is, I did. And enjoyed every bite.

Unless it's liver.

Pussy on a Sizzling Iron Skillet

A play in two acts by Tennessee Tuxedo. All rights reserved.

ACT I

A louche bedroom in a mansion in Mississippi or possibly a Ramada Inn. Night. Sometime in the 1950s. Ceiling fans lazily spin, turning in the wrong direction. Flies cry out for mercy in the grip of Shell No-Pest Strips. Agie the Pussy, a throbbing pulsar of pure sexuality, and Cinderblock, an alcoholic former chess master with a broken ankle and gender identification issues, sit on opposite sides of a Sealy Posturpedic mattress. They study each other, each waiting to make the opening move ...

Agie does.

AGIE THE PUSSY: Why, look, Cinderblock. There’s a stain on my dress. (strips off dress) Oh, that’s better. Isn’t that better?

CINDERBLOCK raises glass, grunts.

AGIE: Oh Cinderblock. It’s Large Daddy’s birthday! A celebratory mood would be more appropriate.

CINDERBLOCK: Hip, hip, hooray…

AGIE: Oh, pooh. You just sit there like, I dunno, some form of masonry or something … an inert hunk of building material, I don’t seem to recall the word. There’s a word for everything, isn’t there?

CINDERBLOCK: Cinderblock.

AGGIE: Why that’s it exactly! How come we don’t make love anymore? Ever since Flipper died …

CINDERBLOCK: Stinker …

AGIE: As the case may be. Why, you been moping around something awful.

CINDERBLOCK: (raising glass) Moping and drinking.

LARGE MAMA bursts in through bedroom door.

LARGE MAMA: When you going to give us a baby?

AGIE: Not now Large Mama! (pushing her out)

CINDERBLOCK: Oedipus complex. The one damn problem I ain't got.

AGIE: Oh, Cinderblock. Oh you big hunk of chess-playing man! (kisses him)

CINDERBLOCK: Ew! Girl cooties!

AGIE: (getting up) Fine! Stew in your alcoholic juices for all I care!

CINDERBLOCK: (hooking up IV drip of Southern Comfort) I'm trying, OK?

AGIE: No, it ain't OK! Oh ... be honest with me Cinder! How’d you break your ankle in the first place?

CINDERBLOCK: Ruy Lopez opening.

AGIE: Is that some form of deeply spiritual friendship?

CINDERBLOCK: Chess move. Broke into the high school chess club to see if I still had it in me … and tripped over the damn timer.

POOTER'S ROTTEN CHILDREN burst in.

POOTER'S ROTTEN CHILDREN: Agghh! We’re rotten children! (to Agie) You can’t get pregnant!

AGIE: Get the hell out of here!

She kicks the children out.

AGIE: Oh Cinderblock. Baby sweetie sugarpie. It ain't like I ain't sympathetic.

CINDERBLOCK: So ... wait. (thinking) You are sympathetic?

AGIE: Of course I am! I know you’ve never been the same ever since that day your index finger unaccountably spasmed and you couldn’t participate in the Mississippi vs. Minsk chess tournament.

CINDERBLOCK: No. Had to watch the big game on TV. Watching Stinker … just fall for that lousy discovered attack. That commie queen came outta nowhere and there was nothing I could do! Nothing!

AGIE: It hurt me, too, Cinderblock. That’s how come Stinker and I made love. Sort of.

CINDERBLOCK: Agghh! Crutch to Queen's Bishop 4!

He swings crutch at her head. Falls.

AGIE: Oh make sweet, sweet love to me, Cinderblock!

CINDERBLOCK: Forced … mate. Stale … mate.

Cinderblock falls unconscious. Agie pokes him with her cute little toe. He remains inert.

AGIE: Oh ... goddamn this sexual frustration anyway! (stamps foot) I feel like a pussy on a sizzling iron skillet!

ACT II

The same louche bedroom. Night. Later, I reckon. Summer lightning plays outside the screened-in terrace. Crosses burn in the distance. Now the whole damn decadent Southern family is gathered, I forget what their last name is. They're all clustered around a big old birthday cake waiting for Large Daddy. (Ad lib.) The cake is labeled "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LARGE DADDY," in case some sleepy theater patrons weren't paying attention when this was mentioned in the first act. Large Daddy finally bursts in through the long-suffering door.

LARGE DADDY: I’m Large Daddy and this here’s my birthday! Where’s my goddamn surprise?

BIG MAMA: You ain’t gonna die, Large Daddy. Surprise! Happy birthday!

LARGE DADDY: Crap! Get the hell out!

BIG MAMA: Well… I thought you’d be happy Large Daddy …

LARGE DADDY: I am happy! Just cause I’m angry and hollering, why do you assume I'm unhappy? Now go, you sorryass parasites! And take that goddamn cake with you! Crap!

The family leaves, dragging out the cake. Cinderblock twitches on the floor. Large Daddy looks at him.

LARGE DADDY: Not you, Cinderblock. Crap! You can stay.

CINDERBLOCK: (sprawled helplessly on floor) Thanks, Large Daddy.

Large Daddy walks up to his sprawled son.

LARGE DADDY: Cinderblock?

CINDERBLOCK: Yes, Large Daddy.

LARGE DADDY: Let’s you and me talk.

CINDERBLOCK: Let’s not.

LARGE DADDY: How come?

CINDERBLOCK: Well, sir. On account of you and me talk but we fail to communicate.

LARGE DADDY: Ain't that a line in Cool Hand Luke?

CINDERBLOCK: That ain't the point. You go round and round in circles and you’re kinda boring. That's the damn point!

LARGE DADDY: The hell it is! Crap! Cut the shit, Cinderblock. Crap! I think you got an alcohol problem.

CINDERBLOCK: (raising glass) No problem at all.

LARGE DADDY: Crap! What’s eating you, anyway?

CINDERBLOCK:  Well, sir. I'd always had a beautiful friendship with Stinker of the Platonic and non-Sodomite variety. Stinker’s understanding was a tad different. My wife screwed him silly in an attempt to persuade him otherwise or have a symbolic ménage a trios when I wasn’t actually present ... I never figured it out. The assignation ended badly and Stinker killed himself … or something. It hit me kind of hard.

LARGE DADDY: (opening eyes after nodding off) Sorry, son. I missed that last part. You were saying?

CINDERBLOCK: Surprise!

LARGE DADDY: Surprise?

CINDERBLOCK: You are gonna die, Large Daddy. Happy birthday!

LARGE DADDY: Finally, the truth for once! (sniffing) Ooeee that smell! Can't you smell that smell?

CINDERBLOCK: I think so, Large Daddy. Hey ... ain't that a line from Lynard Skynard?

LARGE DADDY: No. It’s the smell of mendacity, that’s what that is. Crap!

CINDERBLOCK: (sniffing) Actually, I think one of the Pooter’s rotten kids took a dump behind the …

POOTER: (popping up from behind couch) Somebody mention me?

CINDERBLOCK: Inadvertently.

POOTER: Hey, Large Daddy. You never loved me.

LARGE DADDY: Crap! Why do you say that, Pooter?

POOTER: Cause you named me "Pooter," Large Daddy.

LARGE DADDY: Fair enough. Crap! Thanks for concealing my impending death, you little shit.

POOTER: You're welcome, Large Daddy! Well. (whipping out papers from briefcase) Now that you know you’re dying, be so kind as to sign these papers and give me control of your estate.

LARGE DADDY: No. Crap!

POOTER: OK, then. Guess I’ll see myself out.

Pooter starts to leave. Stops. Turns around.

POOTER: Hey. Large Daddy?

LARGE DADDY: What? Crap! Goddamn it, what?

POOTER: Tourettes Syndrome, that's what. You might want to look into it, Large Daddy.

And now he does walk out.

Sound effect: CRACK of thunder.

CINDERBLOCK: A storm’s coming.

LARGE DADDY: How goddamn dramatic. Crap!

Agie and Large Mama pop up from behind couch. Agie has a massive smile on her face. Where else would it be?

LARGE DADDY: (looking at Agie) Where the hell did you come from? And why are you smiling?

AGIE: Cause I’m pregnant, Large Daddy!

BIG MAMA: It’s a miracle!

CINDERBLOCK: It sure as hell is.

Sound effect: CRACK!

The lights go out.