Changes, Part 2

Changes

This is the second installment of the “earplay” of mine that National Public Radio was all set to produce…until the funding fell through.  Again, I’ve modified the script format a bit for easier reading.

Continued from last week…

Mona:  “Are you all right, Gary?”

Ritchie:  “Gary’s beautiful, Mona.  Doin’ his thang.”

Something heavy, like a large piece of furniture getting knocked over, crashes inside the house.  Ritchie and Mona turn away from the beach Gary’s staring at.  From the porch they’re on with Gary, they can see the wino stumbling around inside the house.

Ritchie looks furious, dripping sarcasm like hot lava with every word.  “Mona, baby, so nice of you to invite that wino in.  So unreasonable of me to take exception to a wino still being in there bustin’ up mah thangs.”  Ritchie looks truly dangerous now, heading back into the house.  “I’ll just toss him over the porch railing.  With all that wine in him he won’t even feel it!”

Gary, oblivious, is still staring at the beach.  “That’s it!  Reality equals infinity minus one.  The one thing we expect.  But that one doesn’t have to be a beach.  It could be…”

Mona and Ritchie are still looking back inside the house at the wino, who’s just knocked a mug off a table that shatters on the floor.  Mona grabs Ritchie’s arm.  “Ritchie, don’t you dare touch that old beatnik!  Just because he’s a wino now, you think he’s nothin’?  Who knows?  Maybe someday our bell bottoms will be out of style…”

Ritchie:  “Say what?”

Mona:  “…and we’ll be the has-beens.”

Gary:  “…could be a desert.”

The beach is gone, replaced by a desert.  Wind blows the top of a sand dune across the porch.

Mona and Ritchie, still looking at the wino inside the house, don’t even notice the beach has been replaced by a desert, except to wipe the sand out of their faces.

Mona mutters, “Stupid sand.”

Ritchie, wiping more sand away from his face, starts to turn back toward what is now a desert instead of a beach, but Mona points inside the house at the wino.

Mona:  “Besides, look at that great beard.”

Ritchie smirks.  “Yeah?  And his crewcut?”

Mona tries to make light.  “He’d just get all snarled up in all your stupid splinters if you tossed him over the porch railing.  He’d never make it to the beach.”

Gary, totally disoriented, looks up at Mona’s last word.  “Beach…”

The desert with its dunes is gone.  The beach is back.

Mona turns back toward Gary.  “Gary?  Are you okay?”  She turns back to Ritchie.  “What are we gonna do?”

Ritchie’s annoyance turns to a contemptuous fear when he, too, turns away from the house and takes a good look at Gary.  “Oh, man, will ya look at this white boy?  Can’t handle dope no how.  Can’t maintain control.”

Gary:  “Control?  You wanta see control?  How would you like it if instead of that harmless wino breaking up your stuff it was a 40-foot monster?”

Loud splashing can be heard on the beach.

Ritchie’s looking at Gary with pity.  “Hey, man, you know me, I didn’t mean nothin’ by it.  Everything’s groovy!”

People are screaming on the beach.  Thunderous footsteps are approaching.

Mona, oblivious, is leaning over Gary.  “Poor thing!  Look how flushed he is, Ritchie!”

Now the people on the beach are screaming louder and running.  The thunderous footsteps are closer.

Ritchie puts a gentle hand on Gary’s shoulder, talking to Mona.  “Think we should get him some Librium?  Help bring him down?”

The screaming and footsteps can no longer be ignored.

Ritchie:  “Oh what is all that noise?  Dumb-ass ‘poor pale things’ on the beach, trying to get as dark as the righteous folk they still lynch in the south.  Pain in the…”  He trails off when he looks up.  “Sweet Jesus!”

A 40-foot monster, looking like a ridiculously cliched cross between Godzilla and the Creature from the Black Lagoon, is approaching their porch stairs.

Mona stares in shock, first at the monster, then at Gary.  “How about…a 20-foot monster?”

Gary, staring vacantly:  “…a 20-foot monster.”

The monster is now 20 feet high, but is starting up the porch stairs, splintering them.

Ritchie:  “My stairs!”

Mona:  “A…a 10-foot butterfly.”

Gary:  “…10-foot butterfly.”

The monster is replaced by a magnificent, though huge, butterfly, flying up the stairs.

Ritchie:  “Not a butterfly, Mona!  They can fly!”

Mona:  “Can fly…away!”

Gary:  “…fly away.”

The butterfly, sparkling in the sunlight, flies away over the Pacific Ocean.

Ritchie:  “He takes the acid and we hallucinate?”

Mona:  “I’m…not sure we were hallucinating.”

Gary groans and tries, very unsteadily, to get to his feet.

Ritchie:  “Easy, white boy.  Don’t try to get up or nothin’.  Take yo’ time!”

Gary:  “…time.”

There’s a crackle, kind of like lightning, but the sun is still shining.

To be continued next week…

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