Continued from previous weeks…
Gary: “I repeat: The sky is orange.”
Mona is concentrating, staring at the blue sky while she repeats “orange” like a mantra.
Ritchie glares at Gary. “White Boy? How can you say the sky is orange when it’s so obviously…”
The wino cuts Ritchie off by clapping a hand over his mouth. “Don’t you remember Peter Pan when Tinker Bell was dying? Orange. Orange. Orange. Orange.”
Gary joins the wino and Mona, chanting “orange.”
The wino, still chanting, waves a cautionary finger at Ritchie before slowly removing his hand from Ritchie’s mouth.
Ritchie smirks, starts swaying from side to side, and chants, “Hare, Hare Krishna, Krishna Rama…”
Mona swats Ritchie hard.
Ritchie: “Orange. Orange. Orange. Orange.”
Mona turns to reward Ritchie with a warm smile while they all continue to chant “orange.”
Ritchie frowns. “Mona, your eyes…”
Mona swats him again.
Ritchie: “Orange. Orange. Orange. Orange.”
They all chant “orange” for a very long time.
Finally Ritchie silences Gary with a right uppercut.
Mona swats Ritchie, but weakly.
Ritchie studies Mona’s eyes, frowning again.
Gary rubs his jaw. “All right. All right. Point well taken.” He sighs heavily. “It’s not working.”
They all contemplate the blue sky.
Finally the wino gathers himself together, appearing to be fairly sober. “You tried, Gary. You tried hard. Now it’s my turn.”
Mona: “I feel funny.”
Wino: “All of you look at that forest.”
They do.
Wino: “Now I ask you: Is that forest really there?”
Gary stops rubbing his jaw to rub the bark of a nearby tree instead before nodding yes.
Ritchie: “Looks pretty solid to me, man.”
Wino: “Aw, come on, Ritchie, that’s a lot of crap. See that brown cloud of smog hanging over the forest? Where’d it come from?”
Ritchie: “Didn’t I hear you say something about…”
The wino cuts him off. “You mean when I was drunk? When I’m drunk I say all kinds of things.”
Ritchie: “But Gary said he’d…”
The wino cuts him off again. “Gary said?” The wino scoffs, rolls his eyes, and tries to talk like Ritchie. “You believe everything that cat has to say? Thought I heard differently, but maybe that’s just surface tough. Like maybe deep down inside you think Gary blows real cool, makes out with all the blonde chicks…” The wino trails off, looking at Ritchie intently.
Ritchie’s face hardens with rage.
The wino looks pleased.
Ritchie glares at Gary, then struts about in front of the wino. “This here lame white boy? Only reason Mona here with Gary is because I didn’t try for her first. Nuthin’ he has to say makes any sense.”
Wino: “That’s it! You’re not going to believe that white boy when he tells you you’re not even in 1968 any more, are you?”
Ritchie does a double-take on the wino. “You white!”
The wino talks quickly. “I don’t count. I’m over 30.” Then the wino looks at Ritchie carefully, emphasizing his next words by drawing them out. “But do you really think a dumb white boy like Gary could just think L.A. away?”
Ritchie frowns. “You’re a wino. I was smoking the pot Gary brought me from New York. Mona took the same shit Gary took. At first I figured hers must not have been any good, but look at her eyes now.” Ritchie’s pacing around, obviously thinking hard. Then he freezes, smiles broadly, and starts to sing: “Baby, everything is all right. Uptight, clean out of sight.” He stops singing and laughs. “We’re just hallucinating!”
To be continued next week…
