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The Point

A Play in Three Acts

(C)1991 RICHARD KATZ

Point Richmond, CA 94801

510-620-0512

Cast of Characters

(In Order of Appearance)

COSTANOAN #1

SEAN

COSTANOAN #2.

KATRINA

IRINA

BEVERLY

HENRY

HOST

MARTIN

CUSTOMER #1

CUSTOMER #2

HENRY'S ANSWERING MACHINE

RECEPTIONIST

CUSTOMER #3

CHILD

SALESMAN

POTENTIAL CUSTOMER #1

POTENTIAL CUSTOMER #2

POTENTIAL CUSTOMER #3

OLD CODGER CUSTOMER

United Parcel Service DRIVER

THE POINT

ACT ONE, Sc 1

Wooden shack on the Santa Fe tracks at Point Richmond, circa 1903. It is a cutaway, like the rentacomputer shop in Act 2. Painted backdrop shows San Francisco skyline with small buildings and one or two tracks. Lots of BIRDCALLS, frog CROAKS, etc.

SEAN is seated at a telegraph key, reading off a piece of yellow paper, and tapping out a message. After he completes the message, he waits a moment; and receives a return message, which he writes on another piece of yellow paper. Sean picks up his sixgun and holsters it. He then steps outside the shack, checks his pocketwatch, and sends a message with hand signals to an offstage person. Sean then goes back to his shack, pours himself a mug of coffee, picks up a Mark Twain novel, and reads a bit.

A STEAM WHISTLE is heard, and a steam engine pulls a train in the near distance. Sean goes back outside to watch the train, then delivers a few more hand signals to offstage.

Sean goes back inside the shack, and fiddles with a gizmo that is fastened to a post &endash;&endash; a bowstringer. After he has put a finishing touch or two on the bowstringer, he tries it out on a bow that is hanging on a wooden peg on the wall. He adjusts the bowstringer a little more, and then uses it to string the bow easily.

The topsail of a huge oceangoing sailing ship glides by.

A few moments later, COSTANOAN #1 walks in to the shack, pours himself a cup of coffee, steps back outside, flicks several drops of coffee to the sky and the ground, and then drinks a bit of it. Costanoan #1 checks out the altered bowstringer. Sean demonstrates it for him. Costanoan #1 then tries it for himself.

(Outlined shadowed underlined text printed like this line

is spoken in Huichuin.)

COSTANOAN #1

Good.

(pause)

Good.

SEAN

Not bad. Tolerable.

Good.

ENTER COSTANOAN #2.

Costanoan #1 strings the bow in the traditional way, then with the bowstringer again.

COSTANOAN #2.

Good. Very good. Most excellent.

(lots of hand gestures)

How do you take it with you?

Sean laughs. Churchbells PEAL. "Closer Walk with Thee." Sean looks at a calendar.

SEAN

It's just like everything else. You can't take it with you.

Costanoan #2 perks up his ears. He points outside. Sean checks that he has his pistol, steps outside to see what the noise is.

ENTER two young women moseying down the tracks, picking blackberries in a basket.

SEAN

Howdy. Howdy do.

KATRINA

Hello.

Back to picking blackberries. Sean goes back inside the shack, reads again.

Costanoan #1 and Costanoan #2 light pipes, take several puffs, tamp them out, and fall asleep.

Telegraph key starts clicking, Sean hurriedly starts writing. After it is done, he taps out a reply. He then wakes the Indians, who go back outside to work. Sean checks the pocketwatch; more telegraph stuff; more hand signals outside.

SEAN

(loudly)

Train comin' through.

(loudly)

Train comin' through, Ma'am.

(to himself)

If you can hear me.

The two women return.

SEAN

You don't have to go or nothin'. Keep pickin'. Just watch the track.

Oh yeah, and you'll find that the berries on the leeward side of the tracks has considerable less soot fallen on'em than the fruit on t'other side. To windward.

KATRINA

Oh, thank you, but we have enough fruit now and we are going home. And do not worry, we will not argue with the steam in the tunnel.

SEAN

You makin' a pie or somethin'?

KATRINA

My sister, she is making a strudel. I go along to make sure she is allright.

SEAN

She looks like she's doin' just fine to me.

STEAM WHISTLE, STEAM ENGINE in near distance. Sean waits a bit, delivers a few more hand signals.

IRINA

(imitating hand signals)

Why do you gesture so much?

SEAN

Oh my god!

Sean starts signalling like crazy.

SEAN (cont.)

You wouldn't want to get them confus-ed.

IRINA

Who are you gesturing to?

SEAN

My men down the track. One by the tunnel, one by the ferry. They throw the train this way or that way, see, depending on what I tell'em. And what I tell'em depends, on what the telegraph tells me. It's got a lot easier now that the railroad shovelled that old shellpile outa the way.

IRINA

And that is your job?

The women go back to picking berries.

SEAN

That's my job. I work for the railroad. Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe.

(pause)

My brother was here first. He works over to the whaling station in Point Molate.

(pause)

Do you ladies work?

(pause)

No offense.

IRINA

No offense taken! I do work. I work for Professor Doctor Botts.

SEAN

Doctor Botts. He's the horsedoctor over to Eastyard?

IRINA

A horse doctor? No, he's just Doctor Botts.

(pause)

He works on aerial navigation.

SEAN

What kinda doctor would that be?

IRINA

Professor Botts is a doctor of philosophy.

SEAN

Well then: If I ever find my philosophy in need of professionile help, I'll just have to stop on over to Doctor Botts and have a seat in his surgery and get my philosphy attended to. Are you kinda like his nurse? Are you kinda like the doctor of philosophy's nurse of philosophy?

IRINA

You are very amusing. Did anyone ever tell you that? Certainly many people have.

I am Professor Doctor Botts's amanuensis.

That's what he calls me.

SEAN

What does an amanuensis do, exactly?

IRINA

I write letters. And of course I answer letters also, from the people I wrote to. For the Professor.

SEAN

Letters about aerial navigation? If I'm not stickin' my nose in someplace it shouldn't be, what's aerial navigation anyway?

IRINA

Not at all. Doctor Botts wants everyone to know about aerial navigation. He says it's the future.

(pause)

Don't you have to go back to work now?

SEAN

No, not at all. Two trains a day, and that's it. Long's they don't run off the track on my watch, everything's hunky dory.

IRINA

What about those other men?

SEAN

That would be Mr Mack and Mr Leary.

IRINA

Are they Indians?

SEAN

You bet. They come up with the signalling idea. I got'em on the payroll. The paymaster thinks they're Irish. You want to tell them about aerial navigation too?

KATRINA

Irina wants to tell to everyone about this aerial navigation of Herr Professor Doctor Botts.

Flying Machines.

SEAN

Flyin' machines? No foolin!

IRINA

It is no fooling at all.

SEAN

Flying machines. And you write letters?

IRINA

I write very nice letters from Professor Botts to very influential people. They are invited to buy shares of stock in the Point Richmond World Aerial Navigation and Construction Company, of which Professor Botts is the principal inventor and constructor. And of course they write back, and so we have a file kept on each shareholder.

KATRINA

He writes to them that they will be very happy to buy a share of his stock for one penny, because a share of his stock will be soon worth five pennies. And then they will be milliardaires.

And even more, they will fly!

SEAN

Damn! Maybe you had ought to write to Mr Hartford and Mr Stanford and Mr Collins. And Colonel Rheem. And Mr Scofield.

CHURCH BELLS in the distance.

KATRINA

She might as well write Professor Doctor Botts's letter to Mr Rockefeller himself. Important respectable people like Mr Rockefeller at companies like the Standard Oil Company are happy to keep their feet on the ground as God intended. Come, sister, it is time for Church.

IRINA

Doctor Botts did write to Mr Rockefeller. And just this week we got a letter all the way from New York City. Mr Rockefeller is sending his chief engineer to our demonstration of aerial navigation, to be held right over there.

SEAN

On that mountain? Nicholl Nob?

IRINA

Will you come too? It will be glorious. It will be a great step for mankind.

KATRINA

It will be devilish enterprise, and God will send thunder and lightning to your celebration. Leave the sky to the birds and the angels. And the sound of the church bells. Come!

SEAN

Tell me something. Tell me a couple things: What's your name?

ENTER Costanoan #1.

IRINA

Irina. And we live in one of Mr Rockefeller's houses, because my sister Katrina works at the refineries.

SEAN

And where do you do your drinkin'?

Irina puts her fingers to her lips.

SEAN (cont.)

Sorry, ma'am, no offense. But with thirty four drinking establishments in town, you can't hardly take a chance on just runnin' into somebody by happenstance. Pret'near every building in town has a saloon or a barbershop, and generally both.

On Washington, you got your Last Chance, your Mile High, your Bottoms Up, your Lucky Silver. And that's just on the hundred block. I favor the Kingdom of Kerry myself. It's got the local brew, just as it was back in Killarney.

And it's got a ladies entrance.

Right near the Coca-Cola sign.

Fingers to lips again.

SEAN (cont.)

Or we could hitch a ride on the company ferry to San Francisco! You ever been to San Francisco? I saw a printed up pamphlet some fella was showin' some other fella, right over there on the other side of the tunnel by Frogtown. Explained how Point Richmond here was gonna be the center of affairs in these parts. In the future, like your Professor goes on about, the future. People'll be takin' the ferry from San Francisco to here, 'stead'a t'other way around.

'Course, quite a bit of that fella's real estate could only be inspected at low tide, I noticed.

Or we could go to see some Shakespeare at the Point Theater.

(thee a ter)

ENTER Costanoan #2.

Fingers to lips again, vigorously.

SEAN (cont.)

You'd rather go to the photoplay? I can understand that. It's better than that play-actin' anyhow.

IRINA

(sotto voce)

Why don't you come to church?

SEAN

(loudly)

Why don't we just go to church?

IRINA

(leaving)

That is a very good idea. First Lutheran Church.

SEAN

(checking his pocketwatch)

Next Sunday. At Eleven. I'll get the Tuesday man to do this on Sunday next week. He's married.

IRINA

(just leaving)

So we'll see you. In church.

KATRINA

(having left)

Any way you can get such a man to church on Sunday is a good idea. Good day mister railroad man.

IRINA

( going back)

What's your name? It must be Seamus, or Patrick.

SEAN

Close. Sean. My father was Patrick. Padraic Macgillycuddy. He worked for the railroad too. He was in law enforcement. He killed Indians.

IRINA

He must be very brave.

SEAN

He was. Some Indian coward put an arrow in his back. Killed'em.

IRINA

We go now. Next Sunday. In church.

EXEUNT Katrina and Irina. Sean waves.

Sean grabs his bow and takes a few target shots at some tin cans offstage.

Telegraph starts tapping again. Sean goes back in the shack.

ACT ONE, Sc 2

Picnic ground at Miller-Knox Shoreline Park in Point Richmond, California, 1991. Prominent San Francisco skyline and petroleum storage tanks. Table is rigged out for an afternoon barbecue and picnic. Amongst a dozen or so people, HENRY and BEVERLY find each other around the salad bowl. He is munching on a plate full of salad. She is tastefully working over a plate of food: barbecued chicken, potato salad, bread, etc., and helping herself to a serving of the same salad.

General BABBLE from the crowd, including the JOKE DIALOGUE (see below).

BEVERLY

You're not eating much.

(beat)

Aren't you hungry?

HENRY

Yes. Actually I'm quite hungry.

BEVERLY

All you're eating is that rabbit food.

(beat)

Are you a vegetarian?

HENRY

No. No, I'm not a vegetarian.

BEVERLY

Neither am I. But I guess you can see that.

HENRY

Yes.

BEVERLY

Do you eat meat?

HENRY

Yes. Yes I do.

BEVERLY

(wielding a drumstick)

This stuff here is pretty good. Here, you want to try some? You like white meat or dark meat?

HENRY

No, thanks anyway.

BEVERLY

There's nothing wrong with it is there?

HENRY

With? With your offering it to me? No, no of course not. It's very kind of you. Friendly. I appreciate it. I don't really know too many people here, and it's...

Meantime, the HOST has been telling a JOKE. The bare bones version of the joke goes something like this (but the Host can embellish it as desired, the more the better):

HOST

A Traveller gets to a small town. He gets a room at the hotel and then goes to the saloon for a beer. He is sitting at the bar. All the townspeople are at the saloon. Someone way across the room yells out, 'Eighty Four.' Everybody in the room laughs uproariously.

About a quarter of the people at the party laugh uproariously at this point, including Henry and Beverly.

HOST (cont.)

The laughter in the saloon dies down. A few minutes later somebody yells out, 'Ninety Six.' More uproarious laughter. 'Fourteen,' 'Eighty Six,' etcetera.

PARTYGOERS laugh.

BEVERLY

(sotto voce, to Henry)

Nineteen?

HENRY

(sotto voce, to Beverly)

Nineteen.

HOST

Finally, the traveler asks the bartender, 'What's the deal? Somebody just yells out a number, and everybody laughs.' The bartender says, 'This is a real small town. A long time ago, we figured out the best hundred jokes, and gave them numbers.' A little later, the traveler screws his courage to the sticking post, and yells out...

BEVERLY AND HENRY

(LOUDLY)

Nineteen!

Dead silence.

HOST

Dead silence. The bartender says loudly, 'See, some people can tell a joke, some people can't.'

Everyone laughs uproariously.

HOST (cont.)

And everyone laughs uproariously.

BEVERLY

Sounds like the Hotel Mac.

(seriously, to Henry)

With the chicken. There's nothing wrong with the chicken, is there?

HENRY

Not really.

BEVERLY

Why aren't you eating the chicken?

HENRY

If you really want to know, because it was cooked on a chrome grill. It's right over there, you can look at it yourself. It's kind of black and tarry now, but around the edges you can see that it used to be a chrome grill from a refrigerator or a stove or some such thing.

BEVERLY

What's so bad about that? What's so bad about chrome?

HENRY

With the heat from the coals and the acid from the food, the chrome probably leached out. Ionized.

BEVERLY

Aaaah! So it gets in the food?

HENRY

Yes. Probably.

BEVERLY

And then it poisons you?

HENRY

Yeah. A little bit. Not much. Really very little at all. But over a period of time, it wouldn't be good for you.

BEVERLY

No. I suppose not. What does it do to you? Exactly?

HENRY

I don't want to make a big deal out of it. The salad is very tasty, and....

BEVERLY

Come on, you can't leave me hanging. How bad is it? Should I not eat this?

HENRY

I think heavy metal ions are probably bad for you no matter which ones they are or how you get them, just like the lead in paint, whether it's chromium, or rhodium, or anything else that gets plated onto something. And aluminum really isn't all that good for you either, and copper is toxic.

BEVERLY

So what's left?

The smokestack of a giant freighter crosses the background.

HENRY

Stainless steel. Stainless steel is good. And iron. And steel, of course. Actually, I'm not too sure about some of the alloy in steel. Iron. Cast iron is number one. Cast iron is good for you.

BEVERLY

"Cast iron is good for you." This is a strange conversation. What's your name?

HENRY

Henry. Henry Giddings. And yours?

BEVERLY

Beverly. Beverly McGill.

HENRY

Nice to meet you. Cast iron is just iron. It probably doesn't ionize very much, and I don't actually know whether the ions are the right ones &emdash;you know, valence &emdash; but iron is good for you. Especially you.

BEVERLY

Me?

HORN of freighter.

HENRY

Female humans. Female humans run an iron deficiency every month, and there is nothing you can do about it.

BEVERLY

I take iron pills.

HENRY

Precisely. When you're bleeding, you've got to mine some virgin ore. Or get a transfusion. So every little bit helps. I guess even cast iron pots and pans. Though I never actually thought of it before.

BEVERLY

So the chicken is poisoned. So what isn't?

HENRY

Cast iron.

BEVERLY

Right. You said that already. Cast iron. I mean, the chicken, what about the potato salad, and this rabbit food you're munching away on there, and there's this stuff here with nuts and fruit, and this dessert stuff, and the bread, and the wine.

HENRY

Yes, it looks good. It all looks very good.

BEVERLY

But you're not eating it.

HENRY

That's true. Well, I just was especially interested in the salad.

BEVERLY

What's wrong with the other stuff? You got right on to the chrome plated chicken.

HENRY

It's kind of like Marlon Brando said to the local in the bar in "The Wild One". You know, the movie where Brando is the chief punk in a motorcycle gang? The Black Rebels?

BEVERLY

Yeah, I remember. Somebody told me they shot that in Point Richmond. The Black Rebels were all white men.

HENRY

They shot it in Hollister. You seen one small town, though, you seen'em all. I grew up in a small town. Really small. Tiny. We didn't even have enough people to have a regular village idiot.

So we all took turns.

Anyway, the local guy at the bar says to him, "Hey Johnny! What is it you guys are rebellin' against?" And Brando says to him, 'Whaddaya got?'

BEVERLY

Right. Whaddaya got. I got potato salad, bread, fruit salad, carrot cake, and butter. And that was a local girl that said that, not a local guy.

HENRY

And you want to know what's wrong with it.

BEVERLY

Right.

HENRY

All right, now see, there's a peanut in the fruit salad, and I can't see it very well under all the dressing, or sauce, or whatever that stuff is, but here, let me dig it out of there if you don't mind, and have a look at it, and it looks ... quite raw. Not roasted.

BEVERLY

I know the woman who made this salad and she used organic fresh fruit from Peckham's Market, and she just made it this morning, and it's very good. Here, try some.

HENRY

It looks quite good. I was just commenting on the peanuts. Raw peanuts have a lot of Aflatoxin B, which is a very potent carcinogen. And she didn't get them at the Santa Fe Market. Which is a great place to shop, as long as you're not on rollerskates.

BEVERLY

Carcinogen.

HENRY

It's denatured by heating. Roasted peanuts are Okay. Roasted peanuts are quite good for you, in fact. I eat them myself, although I usually buy filberts. They're more fun to crack.

BEVERLY

Everything causes cancer.

HENRY

Hmmmm.

BEVERLY

I guess that does sound more like something my mother would say.

Beverly has lost most of her appetite by this time.

HENRY

Hmmmmmmm.

Henry extracts the peanut and tosses it.

BEVERLY

My God! That's horrible. That's really horrible. Nobody told me that. They sell raw peanuts all over the place. I mean in health food stores, and all that.

HENRY

Nobody told you that. Nobody told you that peanuts are, in their unroasted state, carcinogenic. It is a bit esoteric. You know, arcane.

BEVERLY

Ripley's Believe It or Not. Peanuts cause cancer.

HENRY

I've got a whole list of things like that. But people don't want to hear a bunch of bad news, so I generally keep my mouth shut.

BEVERLY

Except to stuff it with a bunch of lettuce. Maybe the lettuce is poison too.

HENRY

The lettuce, I believe, is from a garden on Nicholl Street. That's how I got to this affair in the first place.

BEVERLY

You were nibbling lettuce over the hill and the lettuce looked greener on the other side. Like a rabbit. By the way, are you married? Are you gay? Are you solvent? Are you...

HENRY

"Are you solvent?" Do people actually ask each other that? "Are you solvent?"

BEVERLY

Don't you read the classifieds?

HENRY

In the paper? The want ads?

BEVERLY

The personals.

HENRY

Yeah, sometimes. I answered a few of them, once.

BEVERLY

And?

HENRY

And I got three women who called me on the phone and asked me a bunch of canned questions, and then when they were done asking the canned questions, they told me things like "You sound like you have problems with your mother."

BEVERLY

Was this woman pretty smart?

HENRY

That's why I answered the ad. All three of them laid claim to being "intelligent". Along with being attractive, with a good sense of humor, professional, and a bunch of other euphemisms &emdash; intelligent.

BEVERLY

Was she?

HENRY

It was like an ad. It was an ad. You can't believe an ad. I mean, hell, if you believed ads, you'd be puffing on cigarettes, drinking booze from a bottle, and borrowing your ass off at the bank.

BEVERLY

That's precisely what a lot of people do. So was she intelligent? And try to stay on the subject.

HENRY

Sorry, I do tend to digress a bit.

Henry looks offstage.

BEVERLY

What are you staring at?

HENRY

The squirrel. He's eating the peanut. He's one of those local squirrels that appear magically out of the ground.

(pause)

No. I mean, I don't feel like I'm the one to judge another person's intelligence, I think that's all &emdash; well, all right, NO, she wasn't. They weren't. But that was only a small sample, you wouldn't want to generalize &emdash; sorry, I'm digressing.

BEVERLY

She, or rather they, were not intelligent. Not as advertised. What was her name?

HENRY

I &emdash; I don't know. They don't tell you their names. I guess that's one of the rules. Trying to avoid creeps, I guess. Certainly avoided me. Never heard from any of'em again.

BEVERLY

You probably think too much.

HENRY

I hate my mother and I think too much. A regular Philip Roth. Or like something out of Woody Allen's wastebasket.

BEVERLY

(putting her plate down on a table)

So listen, I've just been thinking about what you said about the food. Maybe it is a little bit poisonous.

HENRY

Yeah, maybe. It's probably squirrel. I know that most people don't like to hear about all that stuff. Poisons. Viruses. Bank failures. Indian massacres. Nuclear war. Whaling.

BEVERLY

Whaling?

HENRY

They used to do whaling on this beach. I think.

BEVERLY

That's horrible. They caught whales here?

HENRY

I think they flenced them here. Actually, right here was a big railroad yard where they sent the trains over to San Francisco on ferryboats. The place where they cut up whales was over there somewhere.

BEVERLY

Well, we'll just have to be a little more upbeat. I just thought I would tell you that I thought about what we were talking about, and do you have conversations like this all the time?

HENRY

No. Usually I don't talk much. And like I said, people don't generally want to hear about problems. Like those guys in major league football jackets standing around by the payphone over there. Wearing beepers.

(beat)

Which is odd, because most of the stuff people like to read about and look at in the movies is about problems. Fights, arguments, murders &emdash; problems. Who dun it.

Henry falls to the ground histrionically. MARTIN comes over to see what the problem is.

MARTIN

Are you allright?

HENRY

(sitting up)

What'd I tell you?

BEVERLY

He overdosed on salad.

HENRY

I'm fine. I was just being histrionic.

BEVERLY

Which is, of course, appropriate. "All the world's a stage."

MARTIN

When does the mewling and puking start?

BEVERLY

Soon. You're right on time.

MARTIN

Were you two having an argument?

HENRY

A discussion. I was illustrating a point.

BEVERLY

To some extent, we were having an argument. Like having a baby &emdash; we talked and had an argument. It was half me and half him, and then we just naturally had an argument. It just popped out. All by itself.

HENRY

(on his feet)

A labor of love.

BEVERLY

The fruits of passion.

MARTIN

What were you talking about?

BEVERLY

You had to be there, Martin. A paraphrase of an argument is like .... the sex scenes in PG rated movies.

HENRY

PG? They don't have sex scenes.

BEVERLY

They kiss, they close the door, they snuggle, cut! The sun is out, the sky is blue. That's the sex scene in a PG rated movie.

HENRY

They don't show any overt sex, if that's what you mean.

BEVERLY

They also don't show any fellatio, or cunnilungus.

HENRY

Interesting.

MARTIN

Well, if everything is allright I'll be getting back to the other room, Beverly. Nice to have met you,...

BEVERLY

Henry. Henry Giddings. Martin Strachan. We work at the same place. We rent computers.

MARTIN

Heard'a Hertz Rentacar? This is Kurtz Rentacomputer. Nice to have met you, Henry. You're that friend of Clark's here in town, right?

HENRY

Right.

Dieselectric locomotive ENGINE NOISE faintly, then increasing.

Henry and Martin shake hands. Martin exits.

HENRY

They don't show anything.

BEVERLY

Why don't they? Why don't they, do you think?

HENRY

Because.

Beverly starts getting it together to go home. Her keyring has (besides her car keys and house key) a large metal whistle.

Locomotive HORN, coming through tunnel.

BEVERLY

Give me one good reason.

HENRY

People wouldn't come and watch it, I suppose.

Beverly is definitely ready to leave.

BEVERLY

People would not only come and watch it, people would watch it and come. If you did it right. People rent more X-Rated videos than any other kind. Nice middle- class "adult" people, sitting around watching other people do it. On a TV set. Go on over to the video store. Next to the yoghurt shop. Joe Bob says Check it out.

HENRY

I hate to change the subject, but it looks like you are definitely ready to split. Would you allow me to escort you home? Or at least to your car? And may I invite you over to my place for an evening? We'll do it right. Strictly organic.

Background NOISE of Santa Fe train loaded with flat cars laden with containers and trailers rumbles by. Very slowly.

BEVERLY

There goes the trucking business.

Train stops, cars CLANK together, train waits, train goes back in other direction. FADES OUT.

BEVERLY (cont.)

Anticipation. It's really the best part. Listen, I've really enjoyed talking to you, and...

HENRY

...But you really must be going.

BEVERLY

Can you meet me at the Baltic Cafe at two P.M. Thursday? Here's my phone number. At work.

HENRY

No problem. How will I know which one you are? Oh, wait, you'll be the one that looks like you.

BEVERLY

You got it. See you then.

He munches on a bit more lettuce, while she says her goodbyes to the host and a few others.

INTERMISSION

ACT TWO

Thursday, 10 A.M. Beverly is at work in her office SR; Henry hasn't come to work yet; and Martin is seated at his desk DS, SR.

Beverly is seated at her desk SR, facing US. Her desk is countertop height, ell-shaped, with the long leg of the ell running SL-SR in front of a storewindow. SR of the storewindow is a half-open glass Dutch door. The short leg of the ell-shaped desk runs US-DS, perhaps five feet in length, supported by a two drawer file cabinet. Beverly's chair is barstool height. Several clipboards are hung underneath the countertop, with forms clipped to them. One more clipboard is on the countertop, next to a Jack-in-the-Box telephone in the shape of a personal computer. "KURTZ RENTACOMPUTER" is painted in mirror image on the window, facing the street outside the window US. SR of the door are three substantial shelves full of portable computers and printers.

Martin's desk is ordinary height, flanked by a file cabinet. Martin, wearing a red tie, is working on little piles of paperwork on his desk, while the video cassette recorder-player on his desk outputs The Terminator to a monitor mounted about seven feet from the floor SR. Occasionally, Martin pushes a button and the monitor displays a view of the front office.

Henry's workplace is a deskheight workbench with several shelves above it SL, with an opaque backdrop. A well organized clutter of parts and pieces is on the shelves, partially concealing a telephone answering machine. A large size gadget is under development on the benchtop; it is hooked up by a maze of cables to a personal size computer, which in turn is hooked up to a plotter and a printer. The plotter plots along at a steady scrawl; the printer chatters intermittently, putting out a pageful at a time. Henry's workplace is dark; i.e. the roomlights in his half of the stage have not been switched on. The little red and amber lamps of the various pieces of equipment are quite noticeable.

CUSTOMERS and POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS enter stage left, emerging from behind Henry's opaque backdrop to pass in front of Beverly's shop window.

Martin's telephone rings.

MARTIN

(into telephone)

Good morning, Kurtz. Martin Schwartz speaking.

(pause)

Oh, good morning, Mr Smith. Mechanics Bank. Right. Right here in town. Yes I called yesterday afternoon. No, it wasn't that urgent, really; you see, our firm is seeking to expand and we were exploring the possibility of...

(pause)

No, we're a partnership. But incorporation would be no problem. No, we're not a corporation. Yet.

(pause)

We could use a hundred thousand, for now.

(pause)

No, we haven't.

(pause)

No...

(pause)

No, no...

(pause)

About six months? Yes, I suppose we could get back together in about six months. Are you sure it wouldn't do any good for me to just stop by and show you a little about ...

(pause)

Right. Track record... Well thanks for getting back and .... right, Bye.

Martin gets up from his chair, thoroughly beaten so early in the day, and goes for a walk US and out. Beverly just watches him go, impassively.

MARTIN

I'll be back.

Beverly's telephone rings. Jack-in-the-Box computer pops up; and Beverly pulls the head closer to talk to the Customer.

BEVERLY

(into telephone-Jack)

Good morning, Kurtz Rentacomputer.

CUSTOMER #1

(voice heard faintly over telephone)

Is this the rentacomputer place?

Beverly punches a key on the telephone-Jack to switch it over to speakerphone mode.

BEVERLY

(into speakerphone)

Yes, this is Kurtz Rentacomputer.

CUSTOMER #1

(over speakerphone;

male, yenta-like)

Do you rent computers?

BEVERLY

(into speakerphone)

Yes we do.

CUSTOMER #1

(over speakerphone)

Well what kind of computers do you rent?

BEVERLY

(into speakerphone)

We rent Macintoshes and IBMs. What do you need?

What program do you need to run?

CUSTOMER #1

(over speakerphone)

Well I run a little business here in town and I just needed something to put out a mailing list, so I wanted to get a word processor. And I wanted to sort all the envelopes by zip codes, because that saves money at the post office.

BEVERLY

(into speakerphone)

Right. Any computer can be a word processor if you feed it some word processing software. We can supply...

CUSTOMER #1

(over speakerphone)

What's software? The salesman at the computer store said that I needed two disks and a drive. Do you have something like that?

BEVERLY

(into speakerphone)

Yes, we do. How about a clone computer running Wordstar? Are you new here?

CUSTOMER #1

(over speakerphone)

Is that letter quality? And I just moved in to a new place some guy fixed up near the post office.

BEVERLY

(into speakerphone)

Great! I promise that if you come in here we can give you something that will do the job, and a free lesson in how to do it, and by the time you're done you'll know everything you need to know the next time you go to the computer store.

Telephone-Jack emits a loud BURP.

BEVERLY (cont.)

Could you hold the phone a minute? I've got another call.

CUSTOMER #1

(over speakerphone)

Yeah, just one more quick question. What do I have to have for a deposit?

BEVERLY

(into speakerphone)

A good credit card.

Telephone-Jack emits a very loud BURP.

BEVERLY (cont.)

Hold on please.

CUSTOMER #1

(over speakerphone)

Where are you located?

BEVERLY

(into speakerphone)

In the Tech Center.

(punching a button on the telephone- Jack "keyboard")

Good morning, Kurtz Rentacomputer.

CUSTOMER #2

(over speakerphone)

(female, very businesslike)

Good morning. Do you have a Mac 2SI with five megs of memory and a forty meg hard drive?

(mack two ess eye)

BEVERLY

(into speakerphone, glancing at the shelves)

Got it right here.

CUSTOMER #2

(over speakerphone)

Mine died. Will you be there in ten minutes?

BEVERLY

(into speakerphone)

I sure hope so. Nuclear war and all.

CUSTOMER #2

(over speakerphone)

Thanx I'll be right over. Bye.

Customer #2 is off the phone. Weird DIALTONE. Beverly punches a button on telephone-Jack.

Martin enters, goes to his desk DS.

BEVERLY

(into speakerphone)

Still there?

CUSTOMER #1

(over speakerphone)

Still here. That's about all I needed to know. How late are you open?

BEVERLY

(into speakerphone)

We're open Monday to Friday nine- thirty to five.

CUSTOMER #1

(over speakerphone)

Okay well maybe I'll stop in. Where did you say it was?

BEVERLY

(into speakerphone, slightly exasperated)

In the Tech Center.

CUSTOMER #1

(over speakerphone)

Okay bye.

Beverly pushes Jack's head back in the box, and sits contemplatively for a moment or two.

Henry's answering-machine-telephone RINGS.

HENRY'S ANSWERING MACHINE

Hello, Giddings not here. Sorry to miss you, please leave a message. Bye.

(male voice)

Mr Giddings, this is Mr Bell of Varco Insurance. I have a note here that you called for a quote on your automobile insurance, and we've almost got it wrapped up, we just need one or two more pieces of information. Could you give me a call at seven seven eight, oh one nine three? Thanks Mr Giddings and have a nice day.

BEVERLY

(turning toward Martin)

Hey Martin!

(pause)

Yo! Martin!

Martin is quite absorbed in watching The Terminator making a retail transaction at a gun shop. He switches the monitor over to surveillance mode, displaying the front of the shop, and gives his less-than-full attention to Beverly.

BEVERLY (cont.)

What's the name of that friend of yours who had the party the other day, over at Keller's Beach?

MARTIN

Mark Brown.

BEVERLY

You wouldn't happen to know the name of the guy who lives next door to him, would you?

MARTIN

Yeah. Why? You want to make a date with him? He's married.

BEVERLY

I want to make a date with his wife.

(pause)

And I want you to watch.

MARTIN

The guy next door is named Clark Something-or-other. The phone number is ...

(checking a Rolodex)

Two three six oh six one eight, four four four eight eight one one at work. You need his name?

BEVERLY

("dialling")

Thanks. No. Just the number.

[[[[[[[THE TELEPHONE-JACK IS STILL IN SPEAKERPHONE MODE.]]]]]]]]

RECEPTIONIST

Universal Specialties, this is Karen speaking.

Martin exits, again.

CUSTOMER #3 enters SL, glances briefly at the lettering on the storewindow as he passes by SL-SR, and heads right on in the door. He is wearing lizardskin cowboy boots, suit pants and an unbuttoned vest, displaying a snakeskin belt with a silver buckle. His CHILD tags along. Child wears boots also, along with his shorts and tee shirt.

BEVERLY

(into telephone)

May I speak to Clark?

RECEPTIONIST

Clark Merriam? I'll ring.

Beverly punches a button to turn off the speakerphone.

BEVERLY

(to CUSTOMER #3)

Need something?

CUSTOMER #3

(in fluent Texan)

I was looking to get a IBM unit to use while I'm in town on bidness. Got a little somethin' goin' over at Chevron. Environmental.

BEVERLY

Anything on the bottom shelf. Toshibas.

(looking him over)

How did you hear about us? If you don't mind my asking, that is.

CUSTOMER #3

Don't mind a'tall. Fella at the ho' tell told me aboutcha. The one up next to the freeway with the Meskin on the sign. Nice quiet place, kinda place you find where the freeway jes' went through.

(hoisting a Toshiba)

Will she run Lotus?

Or just submarines?

BEVERLY

Do you have Lotus? We can't rent the software; it's copyrighted, and we don't...

CUSTOMER #3

No problem. I've got'em out in the car.

Customer #3 and his kid walk out the door US. They walk in front of the storewindow SR-SL, and exit SL.

BEVERLY

Mr Merriam? My name is Beverly McGill, I'm a friend of Henry Giddings, and I wanted to call him but I don't know what his number is.

(pause)

Six two oh, oh eight oh eight. Thanks.

(pause)

Yes, that was me. We just met the other day.

(pause)

It was excellent salad. The lettuce especially. It tasted very ... organic.

(pause)

Customer #3 and his kid come back in the store. CUSTOMER #3 fires up the Toshiba on the countertop. He doesn't need any help, and takes the next few minutes to satisfy himself that it is the right tool for the job. Child does most of the work, standing on a chair, with a little prompting from his old man.

BEVERLY (cont.)

Well, I hope that I am just as interesting in the first person as I am second hand. Thanks for the phone number.

(pause)

Okay. Bye.

Beverly "hangs up" the telephone-Jack.

BEVERLY (cont.)

(to Customer #3)

Everything okay?

CUSTOMER #3

We'll know in a minute.

Nice and quiet, I'll say that for it.

BEVERLY

(to Child)

What's your name?

CHILD

(preoccupied)

Josh.

BEVERLY

Is that Joshua?

CHILD

No Just Josh.

BEVERLY

How old are you?

CHILD

Four and three quarters.

BEVERLY

You're cute.

CHILD

I'm not cute. I'm handsome.

Beverly laughs.

Henry's answering machine-telephone RINGS.

HENRY'S ANSWERING MACHINE

Hello, Giddings not here. Sorry to miss you, please leave a message. Bye.

(female voice)

Mr Giddings, this is Gale at L and E. You know, your machine shop? The backing plate is ready, and you can pick it up anytime. Bye.

Beverly "dials" another number on the telephone-Jack. Before the number goes through, the telephone-Jack BURPS loudly. Beverly kills the first call, punches a button, and answers the second one in speakerphone mode while ducking under the counter to find a clipboard and get out a credit card imprinter.

BEVERLY

(into speakerphone)

Kurtz Rentacomputer. Good afternoon.

CUSTOMER #1

(over telephone)

Hi, I just called a minute ago. I just had one more question.

BEVERLY

(into speakerphone)

What was that?

CUSTOMER #1

(over telephone)

Do you have rent to own?

BEVERLY

(into speakerphone)

What do you mean by rent to own?

CUSTOMER #1

(over telephone)

I mean, does any of the rent go toward a purchase?

BEVERLY

(into speakerphone)

No, not ordinarily, but if you want me to I can jack up the price and then take the rent off of that, like most of the other outfits do.

CUSTOMER #1

(over telephone)

I don't understand. So do you rent to own, or not?

BEVERLY

(into speakerphone)

You've heard of Hertz Rentacar? This is Kurtz Rentacomputer. They rent cars; we rent computers. We rent computers. I'm not a computer salesman.

CUSTOMER #1

(over telephone)

So how much do you get for an Apple?

BEVERLY

(pretty exasperated)

(into speakerphone)

It's all very reasonable. Believe me. Trust me. We're open until five. You're just the person we opened this store for.

CUSTOMER #1

(over telephone)

Bye.

Beverly hangs up.

BEVERLY

Guy sounds like a charter member of the Point Richmond Think Tank.

CUSTOMER #3

How much do you get for this unit here?

BEVERLY

Twenty five a day for the first day and fifteen a day after that. Do you need a printer?

CUSTOMER #3

Is that extra?

Customer #3 lays his credit card and business card on the table and bundles up the computer.

BEVERLY

(grabbing a Kodak Diconix and tossing it in)

Here. No extra charge. We make two copies and use a signed untotalled draft for security.

(getting a color monitor and plugging it in)

Need one of these?

CUSTOMER #3

Nah. It's just bidness.

Beverly runs off two imprints of the credit card and fills them both out, then fills out a rental form and turns all three forms around for signature. Customer #3 signs on the dotted lines and gets ready to go.

CUSTOMER #3

See you tomorrow.

BEVERLY

Thanks much. Goodbye.

Customer #3 splits. Child carries the Toshiba. Beverly staples all the papers together and clips them to a clipboard. Beverly "dials" a number on the telephone-Jack.

BEVERLY

Six two oh, oh eight oh eight.

Henry's telephone RINGS SL. After one ring, it goes into answering machine mode.

Meanwhile, a SALESMAN with a veritable trunkload of samplecases enters.

SALESMAN

(checking a businesscard)

Pardon me, I was just looking for Pixar Graphics...

Beverly points next door. Salesman exits.

HENRY'S ANSWERING MACHINE

Hello. Giddings not here. Sorry to miss you, please leave a message. Bye.

BEVERLY

Henry, this is Beverly. Listen, it'll be real hard for me to make it to the Cafe this afternoon at two. If you get this message, please call me at six two oh, thirty three hundred and we'll talk about it. It's about ten thirty Thursday. Bye.

Beverly hangs up. Two POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS, both female, waltz through the door. They look around.

BEVERLY

Can I help you?

POTENTIAL CUSTOMER #1

No we were just looking. What kind of store is this?

BEVERLY

It's a rentacomputer store. We rent computers. Hertz rents cars; we rent computers.

Beverly's telephone RINGS.

BEVERLY

(into telephone)

Good morning, Kurtz.

(pause)

No sorry wrong number...That's okay.

POTENTIAL CUSTOMER #2

Isn't that interesting! Who rents computers? You know, Herman bought that computer years ago and it's been in the closet since God knows when.

The BUS goes by, NOISILY.

POTENTIAL CUSTOMER #1

Really. I read that in the paper just the other day, all these machines that people bought to balance their checkbooks and get the kid into Harvard and they're in the closet. Really.

BEVERLY

We'll lease it from you and pay you forty percent.

POTENTIAL CUSTOMER #2

How much is that?

BEVERLY

We have it all down here on paper. Take one.

POTENTIAL CUSTOMER #2

Herman will love it. But he has such a hard time admitting he's a failure.

POTENTIAL CUSTOMER #1

Yes, he really ought to get more in touch with himself. We need something like this in Marin. Really.

POTENTIAL CUSTOMER #2

Come, we've kept her long enough. She has work to do. We just came over to try a place for lunch. Do you know where it is?

BEVERLY

Where what is?

POTENTIAL CUSTOMER #2

Ohmigod, I didn't even tell you! My friend told me it was "A Hit in the City".

BEVERLY

A hit in the city. A Hit in the City. A hit in the City.

Hidden City.

POTENTIAL CUSTOMER #1

She told us it was really off the beaten path. That must be why it's called hidden.

BEVERLY

It's right over there. Near the law offices. On the same street as the law offices.

POTENTIAL CUSTOMER #2

You mean where all those quaint old stores were?

Beverly nods her head affirmatively.

POTENTIAL CUSTOMER #2 (cont.)

We drove right past there! Right past it! I remember the big signs that said Law Offices and it looked like a revival meeting inside!

Beverly nods her head even more affirmatively.

Customer #2 steps in the door in a big hurry and walks right up to the counter. She is a well-dressed businesswomen in a power suit carrying a Mac2SI Macsac.

CUSTOMER #2

They're processing environmental claims from the Safeway fire. Hi. I called a few minutes ago about a Mac Two with ...

BEVERLY

That was quick.

CUSTOMER #2

Yeah. We're right around the corner on Park Place. Near the law offices.

BEVERLY

Bottom shelf. That one third from the left ought to be okay. You need a monitor?

CUSTOMER #2

How much more is it?

BEVERLY

It's included.

CUSTOMER #2

No, that's okay. What happens if it breaks?

BEVERLY

We'll give you another one.

CUSTOMER #2

Mind if I try it out?

CUSTOMER #2 sets up the Mac, loads software, starts her program. It plays clarinet music, then computer music, then shows pictures, types text, etc.

POTENTIAL CUSTOMER #3 enters.

POTENTIAL CUSTOMER #3

Pixar?

Beverly points next door.

BEVERLY

But they're not open till nine. If at all.

Potential Customer #3 exits.

OLD CODGER CUSTOMER enters, holding a piece of paper printed up with a price list. .

CUSTOMER #2

Where do I sign?

BEVERLY

Here here and here. Fill out this piece of paper here and here. I'll make two imprints of this. We trust you with the machine, you trust us with the blank one.

It will be just a moment, sir.

OLD CODGER CUSTOMER

Take your time, young lady. I'm in no hurry, no hurry at all.

CUSTOMER #2

Why two?

BEVERLY

One to pay the bill, one for security.

CUSTOMER #2

I was going to pay cash. Is cash okay?

BEVERLY

Cash is fine. How long do you need it?

CUSTOMER #2

A week.

BEVERLY

One thirty five thirty one Make it one thirty five. Cash.

CUSTOMER #2

(forking over three fifty dollar bills)

Fine.

Telephone-Jack pops up. Beverly fields the next call while taking care of Customer #2.

BEVERLY

(into telephone)

Kurtz Rentacomputer. Good morning.

(pause)

You're from which computer store?

(pause)

Which one? In Lafayette?

(pause)

In the City? Oh.

(pause)

No, we aren't really in the market for any of those right now.

(pause)

Yes, I'm sure it's a very reasonable price.

(pause)

So how many can you put us down for? I don't know. Put us down for a half a million, or two dozen. Whatever. We don't want any. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever, no matter how many you put us down for.

Beverly hangs up.

BEVERLY

(to Customer #2

What is it?

CUSTOMER #2

It's a play. You just watch it.

BEVERLY

What did you write it in?

CUSTOMER #2

It's a Hypercard stack.

They all watch for a while.

BEVERLY

Can I get a copy of it?

POTENTIAL CUSTOMER #2

May I take this? I want to show it to my husband, if you don't mind.

Potential Customers start to exit SR with a wave goodbye.

BEVERLY

Not at all. Not at all.

BEVERLY (cont.)

(to Customer #2)

Can I get a copy of it?

CUSTOMER #2

(handing Beverly some diskettes)

It's still a little buggy. You look like you could probably figure it out though.

POTENTIAL CUSTOMER #1

Will you look at that? Ohmigod, look at that! You don't even need a theater anymore, a machine can do it! Really.

POTENTIAL CUSTOMER #2

Come on, Sally, we're going to lunch. If you want to see a play, go to the theater.

Customer #2 starts to exit with a CPU only, in her Macsac.

BEVERLY (cont.)

Thanks for the show. See you later.

CUSTOMER #2

Later. Thanks.

(to Potential Customer #1&2)

Hey, follow me, I'll point you to your lunch counter.

Customer #1 appears in the rentacomputer shop in person. He is about thirty-seven, definitely East Coast.

BEVERLY

Hello.

CUSTOMER #1

Hi. I called earlier about renting a word processor.

BEVERLY

I remember. Why don't you get that Mac Plus down from there. And put it up here.

I believe this gentleman was ahead of you, though.

OLD CODGER CUSTOMER

Oh, that's allright. Quite allright. Like I said, I'm in no hurry.

CUSTOMER #1

Are you sure this is the right computer for me? I mean, I don't know very much about these things, but I ...

BEVERLY

Don't worry about a thing. This is a very intelligent machine. In addition to being attractive and professional.

Beverly punches a button or two on the keyboard of the telephone- Jack. Telephone-Jack pops up, absurdly.

BEVERLY (cont.)

This one, on the other hand, has a good sense of humor.

CUSTOMER #1

How much is it?

BEVERLY

Seventy five bucks a week. Plus tax.

CUSTOMER #1

Seventy five. How much could you buy something like that for?

BEVERLY

(setting up a Mac Plus)

A million dollars. Why would you want to buy it? You don't even know how to start it.

CUSTOMER #1

I get it. You mean, I could just rent it for a week and then I would know the score.

BEVERLY

You want to try it?

CUSTOMER #1

I was just shopping around today. Let me ...

BEVERLY

There's no other place anywhere near this place that's anything like this place.

CUSTOMER #1

You talked me into it.

BEVERLY

Got a credit card?

CUSTOMER #1

I got Visa, Mastercard, American Express.

Beverly runs off the credit card while spielling about how a word processor works. She speaks in a didactic fashion, so Customer #1 cannot get a word in edgewise.

BEVERLY

These things are like a little electronic office. You ever work in an office?

Customer #1 nods.

BEVERLY (cont.)

So each one of these little diskettes &emdash; is like a file drawer.

Beverly slides open a file drawer full of manila files.

Like it's got a bunch of pieces of paper in it, or a bunch of drawings or a set of instructions, or some such thing, and all the pieces of paper will be in files. Like these manila files here, with little names on the top. So here, click twice on the icon of the disk drive &endash; which is like the file drawer &emdash; and this little file folder here. Now you're ready to open the files. Just like you were in an office and you wanted to look in a file drawer and get out a file and see what was in it, and write in it, or take it to the boss, or whatever. So now, just click twice on the picture of the hand with the quill pen. Right, you do it. Don't worry, it won't blow up...

The lesson drones on in pantomime. Customer #1 achieves a kind of enlightenment upon entering the information age. Old Codger Customer also watches, intently. Meanwhile, Henry's answering machine-telephone kicks into gear &emdash; RINGS.

HENRY'S ANSWERING MACHINE

Hello, Giddings not here. Sorry to miss you, please leave a message. Bye.

(Teutonic male voice [Heinz's])

Giddings! This is Schultz. From L and E. Never mind that message from the woman here. This is not done. You think I am a mindreader? A magician? I can make things from my imagination? This is not drawings you have given me, Giddings. This is not drawings, no; this is pictures! You must come over here and you must make this what is for a machinist a drawing. You think... oh, there you is now, you comin' through my door, well there is no reason to talk on this stupid box any more like this...

(Henry's voice in background)

Take it easy, Heinz. I'm right here. No problem, Heinz.

(Teutonic male voice [Heinz's])

Do you ever call to that stupid box you have instead of a secretary?

(Henry's voice in background)

Yeah, Heinz, as a matter of fact, do you think I could call to it right now?

A few moments pass, while Henry dials his own telephone number on Heinz's telephone.

Henry's telephone RINGS.

HENRY'S ANSWERING MACHINE

Hello, Giddings not here. Sorry to miss you, please leave a message. Bye.

This is followed by some beeps and boops of an electronic nature, then

HENRY'S ANSWERING MACHINE (cont.)

(Henry's voice)

It's me.

This is followed by some more beeps and boops, as Henry rewinds the tape.

HENRY'S ANSWERING MACHINE (cont.)

(male voice)

Mr Giddings, this is Mr Bell of Varco Insurance. I have a note here that you called for a quote on your automobile insurance, and we've almost got it wrapped up, we just need one or two more pieces of information. Could you give me a call at seven seven eight, oh one nine three? Thanks Mr Giddings and have a nice day.

Henry's answering machine emits several dial tones plus some strange buzzes. Then

HENRY'S ANSWERING MACHINE (cont.)

(female voice)

Mr Giddings, this is Gale at L and E. You know, your machine shop? The backing plate is ready, and you can pick it up anytime. Bye.

HENRY'S ANSWERING MACHINE (cont.)

(Beverly's voice)

Henry, this is Beverly. Listen, it'll be real hard for me to make it to the Cafe this afternoon at two. If you get this message, please call me at six two oh thirty three hundred and we'll talk about it. It's about ten thirty Thursday. Bye.

Henry's answering machine emits several short dial tones.

(Teutonic male voice [Heinz's])

Giddings! This is Schultz. From L and E. On twenty third street. Never mind that message from the woman here. This is not done. You think I am a mindreader? A magician? I can make things from my imagination? This is not drawings you have given me, Giddings. This is not drawings, no; this is pictures! You must come over here and you must make this what is for a machinist a drawing. You think... oh, there you is now, you comin' through my door, well there is no reason to talk on this stupid box any more like this...

(Henry's voice in background)

Take it easy, Heinz. I'm right here. No problem, Heinz.

(Teutonic male voice [Heinz's])

Do you ever call to that stupid box you have instead of a secretary?

(Henry's voice in background)

Yeah, Heinz, as a matter of fact, do you think I could call to it right now?

(Henry's voice)

It's me.

Dead air, while Henry dials Beverly at work.

Telephone-Jack pops up, in the middle of Beverly's lesson.

BEVERLY

Henry! That was quick.

(pause)

Just a second, Henry.

(to Customer #1 and Old Codger Customer)

Just a minute, okay?

Customer #1 doesn't even look up from his keyboard, he merely waves. Beverly punches a button or two on the telephone-Jack and then steps in to Martin's office, picks up Martin's telephone, and closes Martin's door.

BEVERLY (cont.)

It's just going to be real busy this afternoon and the person who comes in Thursday afternoons to do the bills isn't coming in, so I have to be here &emdash; you know how it is.

(pause)

That's very kind of you. I feel bad about the date at the cafe, so would you let me take you out to dinner &emdash; tonite, if you aren't doing something else? We'll do something special &endash; we'll go to the Hotel Mac.

(pause)

The last time you were there you couldn't eat because it was full of playgoers? How funny!

(pause)

And everything else closes at three. But I really want to.

(pause)

But you mean you would actually rather have dinner at home?

(pause)

Of course I can understand that. I would too, but it would be just impossible for me to get out today to shop and I'll never get home in time to ...

(pause)

At your home? You mean at your place. That would be very nice, but I didn't mean to call up and invite myself over to your place just like that...

(pause)

Yes, that would be wonderful. One twenty three Terrace Street, yes I know where that is, it's up the hill and to the left Do you want me to bring anything?

(pause)

Just my appetite? Okay, I've got it right here.

(pause)

A real fixer upper. Got it. Bye.

Beverly hangs up Martins's phone and steps back into the store. The telephone-Jack makes an off-the-hook sound; Beverly "hangs it up", and goes back to instructing Customer #1. Customer #1 is beginning to get the hang of it, but everytime Beverly has a spare minute, he asks her some trivial question, to which Beverly patiently demonstrates the answer.

A United Parcel Service DRIVER arrives snappily with a parcel. Beverly signs for it; the Driver leaves; Beverly opens the package. Inside is a printed circuit board, of the type used to upgrade a personal computer &emdash; a neat little package. She files it away.

Meanwhile, Henry arrives at his workplace SL on a bicycle. He turns on the roomlights, and then he replays the last few lines of his answering machine tape, i.e.

HENRY'S ANSWERING MACHINE

(Henry's voice in background)

Yeah, Heinz, as a matter of fact, do you think I could call to it right now?

(Henry's voice)

It's me.

and then rewinds the tape and resets the machine. He starts dialling a telephone number on the machine.

HENRY

Seven seven eight, oh one nine eight.

While the phone rings, Henry starts fiddling with his gadget under development. For the rest of this Act, Henry keeps his hands occupied with the accoutrements on his workbench, physically engaged with the act of research and development, with the telephone jammed between his shoulder and chin, mentally half engaged in an act of verbal dissertation and discovery.

HENRY (cont.)

Wrong number? Damn. Sorry. I mean, oh hell. Excuse the ring, rather.

Henry has to replay the answering machine tape, searching around on the tape to find the message from the insurance guy. The tape finally says, among other things,

HENRY'S ANSWERING MACHINE

(male voice)

...Oh one nine three? Thanks Mr Giddings and have a nice day.

(rewind)

...and have a nice day.

(rewind)

...have a nice day.

HENRY

(dialling)

Oh one nine three. And have a nice day. But in case it turns out to be a hurricane or an earthquake and it's not so goddamned nice, you better buy some insurance, or my boss's holding company will foreclose on your house and kick your little ass out in the street and then we'll see what kind of a nice day you have without any insurance you stupid sonuvabitch Mr Giddings Hello is Mr Bell there?

(pause)

This is Henry Giddings, Mr Bell. I called about getting some insurance on my car?

(pause)

I don't drive it to work.

(pause)

I ride a bicycle.

(pause)

Nobody else drives it at all.

(pause)

Nine hundred bucks? ...No! ... You gotta be puttin' me on.... That's a joke, right? That's a fortune. Nine hundred bucks for car insurance? To drive around the block once in a while?

(pause)

Hey, listen, I know you don't want the business, but listen, I just want to know, doesn't it matter that I hardly ever drive the damned thing? I mean, really, man, it never leaves the yard. Bicycling is much better for you, you know. It's good for the heart, keeps your health insurance premium low. You know, yer in the insurance business..... if you don't smoke and you get a good physical, you don't pay as much for health insurance? Hey, Mr Bell, why don't you have a system like that for the cars?

(pause)

Yeah I know of course you rate the drivers for being drunks and being the wrong sex and being from the wrong part of town and a million other irrational things, but how come you don't rate the cars on how many miles they run? I'm not an insurance man, you know, but it seems to me that the more you drive it, ceteris paribus, the more... other things being equal ... the more you drive, the more likely you're going to be to have an accident. I mean, that's what accidents are all all about &emdash; driving. The more miles, the more accidents. Got it?

(pause)

I know you don't set the rates, Mr Bell. But hey, this is a brilliant idea, you could get to be an executive vice-president &emdash; this would be like research and development at the insurance company, instead of spending all their time trying to figure out investment schemes for making a killing reinvesting the handle &emdash; I mean, the premiums &emdash; you could come up with some way to make it fair. Just charge people for the amount they drive. If I drive twice as much, I pay twice as much. I mean, I gotta pay six hundred bucks to drive a thousand miles. A year! And my neighbor pays six hundred bucks, and she drives forty miles to work every day. That's crazy!

(pause)

I know you don't make the rules. But check this out, Bell: You could give everybody &emdash; all of your insureds &emdash; a mileage meter.

(pause)

You couldn't just read the mileage off the odometer, because then everybody would cheat. Just like they cheat now, over at the casualty department, on the stuff they say is stolen. So you got to have some kind of a meter.

(pause)

Make it an hourmeter, so it only measures the time the engine is running. That's it! An hourmeter. It's very simple. Ah, but you can't have it run off the car battery, because then it can be shut off, because then all us larcenous bastards that you take money from would ... cut off the juice. Okay, so it's got to be self-powered. Of course, it's a self-powered hourmeter running on vibration. It's a vibration meter. A self-powered vibrational hourmeter! When the engine is running, that's when the insurance company is at risk, obviously, so this little gizmo is going to record how many hours the engine has been running. It doesn't really matter how fast the car is going. Hell, it's a lot safer to go sixty on the freeway than to go thirty on my street out here, with all the curves and sightseers all over the place, but if the engine is running, then you got a potential problem. Right? So you want to know how many hours, and how long.

I got it. It's simple. You have a clock; no, you have two clocks. Two battery powered clocks! The first clock runs until you attach this hourmeter to the engine. With a magnet. Right! When the magnetic field is made, the first clock stops, and that tells you when the guy started driving. First of December, or eighth of August or whatever. And then when the gizmo is taken off, after a year .... naaah, say six months, wouldn't want to risk anything over six months ... the second clock stops, and that tells you when the insured was insured. Or uninsured. Anyway, the magnetic field is broken, and the clock stops. Meantime, the third clock, the one that's powered by the vibration of the engine, is keeping track of how many hours the engine has been running. After six months, you mail the clock in, and then the insurance company knows how many miles you drove. Not really, they know how many hours the engine was running, but that's close enough. Better, really.

(pause)

Of course the insureds put the clocks on their own cars. If you don't believe your own customers, well... you got a point. Fraudulent conversion is a bitch. Lemme think. Okay, I got it. You glue a bar-code sticker to the car when the guy comes in to sign up for insurance, and you got a sticker on the hourmeter, so you match up the numbers back at headquarters, like the FBI does, and if you get a match, then the guy is insured, and if they don't match, well, better go in to see yer friendly insurance agent.

(pause)

Or you could hav'em installed at a chain of gas stations, like the one over at Cutting and Canal that used to be a real busy corner but doesnt' have much to do since the freeway went through. Or maybe a ten minute oil change franchise. Or you could put together a whole statewide string of places like Bradley's here in town&endash;&endash; yeah, that's it, a string of "intelligent repair shops." And the little gizmo better be on there if you get in a wreck, 'cause the clock is gonna stop as soon as it gets shook loose from where it was magnetically stuck to the car, yessirreebob! Yessirreebobby! Covered! Get it?

A high-pitched BEEP comes from Henry's telephone.

HENRY (cont.)

Could you hold a minute thanx.

Henry punches the receiver.

HENRY (cont.)

Giddings here.

(pause)

How are you, Jonathon?

(pause)

It's not ready yet. We're getting some local instability on the intrinsic architecture. In the vicinity of space one and space thirty six. Gotta work it out.

(pause)

So we promised'em. So we'll be late.

(pause)

So they won't pay us.

(pause)

So what are you, a dissatisfied investor? This is R and D, not R and R. I got another call. You wanna wait?

(pause)

Okay, talk to you tomorrow.

Henry hits the receiver again.

HENRY (cont.)

Still there? So people mail these things in every six months, and then you send them a bill for how much they drove the car, based on how much people like them cost the company on the average for an hour of driving. Get it? Better yet, you send them a refund, 'cause you already got more than your share of the money up front, and you've been playing with our money on the float for six months, and now you can do all your customers a favor and send'em back what you overcharged'em.

(pause)

Hey, you'll be a hero. No, it won't cost the company any money. Ask any accountant. Ask that accountant guy over at the firehouse. Or his "investments" counselor down the street. It makes sense! The company will make money. You'll get market share. Don't you think there will be a million people out there who will try something new cause it will save them money? Don't you think Allstate could use a million more customers? What the hell, the customers know it couldn't cost them any more for car insurance. You'll be famous! You'll be a pioneer! We'll call it the Hourglass. We'll make the meter in the shape of an hourglass. Hourmeter. Hourglass. Hourglass. HourGlas®.

(pause)

It's rational! Blaze new trails in car insurance.

(long pause)

Yeah, I can see why you wouldn't be too interested. I understand. I understand. Hey, did you know that a guy at American Express invented the Traveler's Cheque, and theyre still using them the same way they did when they invented them a hundred years ago? Let me tell you one more thing: American Express did twenty five billion dollars in Traveler's Cheques last year.

(pause)

Yeah, I'll send you a check for half. Bye.

Henry hangs up.

HENRY (cont.)

I'll send him a Travelers Cheque. American Express.

(pause)

HourGlas®. Don't leave home without it™.

Henry has finished checking on his equipment. He refills the plotter pen with ink, gets back on his bicycle and leaves for the day.

Beverly is just finishing up her pantomimed lesson with Customer #1.

BEVERLY

Twenty-six minutes. You caught on pretty fast. Welcome to the misinformation age.

CUSTOMER #1

Yeah. Maybe I'll give this a try, and maybe try out one or two of the other ones you got here, before I make up my mind about which one to get.

BEVERLY

(tearing up the credit slip)

You mean, you're not going to rent it?

CUSTOMER #1

I'll stop back. Oh, by the way, where's a place to get a bite to eat?

BEVERLY

Where'd you say you were from?

CUSTOMER #1

Back East.

How about a hamburger?

BEVERLY

Well &endash;&endash; here in town you can have

a French burger,

or a chili burger,

or a Louie burger,

or a Blue burger,

or an Anaheim burger,

Or an All American Burger,

or a Great American Burger,

or an Ortega burger.

or a Neiman-Schell Beef Hamburger.

CUSTOMER #1

Wow. Don't you have anything in this town but hamburgers?

BEVERLY

Listen: General Franks has a marble countertop and a model of an ocean liner, and at this time of day, Chevron isn't out to lunch yet. And get this: you can get a Coney Island Hot Dog! or a Philadelphia Cheese Steak!

CUSTOMER #1

That's on what?

BEVERLY

On a roll. It's .... on a roll!

It's up from the woodworker's, on Tewksbury. T-E-W-K-S-B-U-R-Y. Next to the kayak shop.

EXIT Customer #1.

BEVERLY (cont)

I'm so sorry to keep you waiting.

OLD CODGER CUSTOMER

That's quite allright, young lady.

BEVERLY

What can I do for you?

OLD CODGER CUSTOMER

I saw on your price list somebody gave me you have a discount for seniors.

BEVERLY

That's right.

OLD CODGER CUSTOMER

So I thought I would just stop in and see what it was all about. I get tired of sitting around all day at the house reading my Bible.

Cramming for my finals.

Beverly laughs.

OLD CODGER CUSTOMER(cont.)

Never heard that one?

That's an old joke. Real old. An old people's joke.

It's so old, amongst us old folks, we just call it old ninety-nine.

BEVERLY

Sixty-four.

They both laugh.

OLD CODGER CUSTOMER

Heard that one too, eh?

Now see here, young lady, how about if I just take this one that young fella didn't want. Some people just aren't ready for the new things, you know.

BEVERLY

Do you need a lesson?

OLD CODGER CUSTOMER

(clicking the mouse appropriately)

Oh, no, I think what you told the New Yorker was about right.

Here's my telephone bill, you can copy all the information you need right from there. And I don't have a credit card, but you can call my bank if you need to, Mechanics Bank, been with'em for years ...

BEVERLY

(writing it up)

No, no, that's no problem. That's okay.

Been in town long?

OLD CODGER CUSTOMER

All my life. Always something new, though.

BEVERLY

Yeah?

OLD CODGER CUSTOMER

Oh, sure! Just as new as this little guy.

My dad told me about a fella once built a flying machine, right about here where we're standing. Right here in Point Richmond. Frogtown, we used to call this part. Before the Wright Brothers, too!

BEVERLY

(handing him a paper to sign)

Oh yeah?

OLD CODGER CUSTOMER

That's right.

BEVERLY

That's interesting. Never heard of it. Did it fly?

OLD CODGER CUSTOMER

Way I heard the story, a freak storm came off the Bay, and smashed it all to pieces. Out of the clear blue sky, just like that! Right when the fella was fixin to fly it offa that hill right over there.

Funny how these things go.

Hope nothin' like that happens to the little genius here.

BEVERLY

(showing him another piece of paper)

Don't worry, Mr Fredericks, it's insured.

Insured against everything except mysterious disappearance, even Acts of God.

OLD CODGER CUSTOMER

Well, I've taken enough of your time.

BEVERLY

If you have any problem, call this number here. Just make sure you have your eyes on the screen, your hands on the keyboard, and the phone in your ear. And here's my number at home, too, in case you need any help after hours.

OLD CODGER CUSTOMER

Thanks very much. Bye now. Take care.

Beverly and Old Codger Customer carry all the stuff out. Old Codger Customer waves.

Reenter Beverly.

Telephone-Jack pops up.

BEVERLY

(into telephone)

Good morning ... pardon me, afternoon... Kurtz.

(pause)

Five o'clock. Right. Yeah, maybe, somebody might still be here a few minutes after five. I can tell you one thing, though, it won't be me. I'm here every day from ten to five. Ten to five. You want to make an appointment for before ten or after five or Saturday at midnight, fine. I'll be here. But a few minutes after five. Really! No we don't have another one somebody just came along and took the last one. Okay, well thanks for calling. No really, we're tapped out on those. Bye.

Beverly hangs up. Customer #3 walks back in.

BEVERLY

Hi. Something the matter? Something wrong with the machine?

CUSTOMER #3

No. Hell no. Everything's jes' fine. I just got to thinkin', how much did you say you was gettin' a day for that unit?

BEVERLY

Twenty-five.

CUSTOMER #3

And a week?

BEVERLY

Seventy-five.

CUSTOMER #3

And a month?

BEVERLY

Two fifty.

CUSTOMER #3

Well I won't ask you about any longer than a month, cause a fella'd be a fool to rent somethin' long enough to pay fer it.

BEVERLY

You'd be amazed.

CUSTOMER #3

I probably would. Pardon me for seeming kinda nosey, but how do you finance these things? Go to the bank?

BEVERLY

That's not really my department. My partner handles all that.

CUSTOMER #3

Is that the fella I seen walkin outa here a while back, looked like mebbe somebody just kicked hell outa his dog?

BEVERLY

Medium height, about forty, red tie?

CUSTOMER #3

That's him, ah reckon.

(pause)

Y'see I got one or two of these units back home and I got a fair idea how much they go for in the store. And o'course I was only buying a few of'em. So that kinda set me to thinkin', you'all are cuttin' a pretty fat hog in the ass here, then I noticed on the bottom of this rental form here it says somethin' about investing, "Better than Windmills", it says. You got some kind of paperwork on this here "investing"? And don't you worry none, I'm not from the IRS or the SEC or the KGB or none a them boys.

Beverly hands Customer #3 a copy of the same sheet of paper she handed to Potential Customers #1 and #2.

BEVERLY

Net annual internal rate of return is fifty four point six percent with the parameters listed at the top.

CUSTOMER #3

I see that. That's better than punchin' holes in the ground. Did you figger this out?

BEVERLY

Our accountant did.

CUSTOMER #3

He's pretty sharp.

BEVERLY

She.

CUSTOMER #3

How many more of these here machines could you use?

BEVERLY

Twenty. Right now.

Customer #3 whips out a checkbook and starts writing.

CUSTOMER #3

Count me in fer twenty units. Toshibas. You want to shake hands? I'll have my lawyer get in touch with you on Monday about the paperwork.

BEVERLY

Ah reckon.

CUSTOMER #3

All right, you take'er easy and tell that partner'a yours to perk up. Fella looked like he needed a little he'p. Have a good weekend.

Customer #3 exits. Beverly stares at the check.

Telephone-Jack pops up and down several times in a row.

Beverly files all the papers that have accumulated on the counter. Martin comes back in.

BEVERLY

You were gone a long time. Where'd you go, to the Post Office.

MARTIN

Yeah.

I got stamps.

INTERMISSION

ACT THREE

Henry's apartment. Compound archery bow hangs on the wall with a dozen or so aluminum arrows.

Henry arrives on his bicycle with some groceries and a bakery box. He parks the bicycle inside, fires up his stereo set with Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, and then goes about preparing dinner. A pot or two of food is already prepared in the refrigerator. After a few minutes, the doorbell RINGS.

Henry opens the front door of his apartment. Beverly is right on time. She is holding a purse and a bottle of sake in a brown bag. Beverly puts away her car keys, with a large whistle attached to the keyring.

HENRY

Good evening. How are you?

BEVERLY

I'm fine. Hi!

HENRY

Dinner's almost ready. Would you like a drink? How about a beer?

(noticing the brown bag)

Or sake?

BEVERLY

How did you know it's sake?

HENRY

The shape of the bag.

(peering into the brown bag)

I bought some of that one time.

BEVERLY

How was it?

HENRY

Quite good.

BEVERLY

Great. Let's drink it right now.

HENRY

I bought some interesting beer yesterday. Perhaps you'd like to try it. It's brewed over in Berkeley by a fellow who runs a foreign car garage.

BEVERLY

A brand new brand of beer. I was reading about that in the paper the other day. They call them boutique beer.

HENRY

Right. Boutique beer. From Berkeley. Pretty exotic.

BEVERLY

The sake's brewed in Berkeley too, by the way.

Henry has been busy at the refrigerator getting out two longneck bottles of zymurgical artistry. While he has his back turned, Beverly looks up and down his kitchen.

HENRY (cont.)

(pouring two beersteins and proffering one to Beverly)

Here you go. What are we toasting?

BEVERLY

A guy that can cook.

(pause)

You can tell a lot about a guy from his kitchen. If he has one. Like, what if you had no kitchen at all? Just a bar. And had all your meals prepared by some catering service that catered to prosperous bachelors who could spend twenty thousand dollars a year on food.

HENRY

That's an idea. Probably make tons of money.

BEVERLY

Catering to successful overgrown brats.

Beverly is distracted in her ruminations by the real Henry's kitchen, which is in fact a fascinating array of equipment and supplies of the very latest type. Henry's cutting board is made of some plastic material, milky white and very tough looking. There is a much larger version of the cutting board tacked magnetically to the refrigerator. Knives. Great assortment of knives. Collanders, strainers, stainless steel everywhere. On a shelf above the stove there is a collection of apothecary jars with bizarre labels on them, old-time color graphics for fin-de- siecle patent remedies and nostrums. Several overgrown plants are hanging from the ceiling in ceramic planters with macrame slings.

BEVERLY

Stainless steel.

Beverly unzips the top of the beer bottle and takes a long slug.

BEVERLY (cont.)

Why Henry! This is positively marvelous! It's like &emdash; medicine! Not pills. Medicine.

HENRY

Glad you like it.

BEVERLY

I usually buy beer at the place where they have the fresh Coca-Cola sign painted on the side of the building. Near where the Santa Fe has a hole in the fence so the truckdrivers can sneak across the street and grab a cool one while they're waiting for the train.

HENRY

That's an interesting detail. Two interesting details.

He turns his back again, and goes back to chopping up vegetables and meat, which he has put on separate chopping blocks.

BEVERLY

You certainly do get involved with your work.

Beverly waves a hand over the assortment of pots and pans and stirring implements Henry had neatly arranged all around him on a butcherblock work table.

BEVERLY (cont.)

Can I do anything to help?

HENRY

Yes, of course. Stir this pot over here a few times every minute. It's not supposed to boil.

BEVERLY

I'll watch it. A watched pot never boils.

Henry laughs heartily.

Mozart's opera The Magic Flute is playing on a component stereo set (one with lots of wires connecting the components) in the living room.

BEVERLY

Henry, what is in these jars?

HENRY

The apothecary jars? Just what's in them. I mean, the stuff that looks like garlic is garlic, and the stuff that looks like basil is basil. You confused by the labels?

BEVERLY

At first I thought they were from Sherry's Department Store. "Reverend Naar's Epileptic Compound? Gross's Original and Only Mint Flavored Headache Powder?"

(pause)

"Dr Sifford's New World External Preparation for the Restoration and Regulation of Sexual Organs and Dribbling Urine? Caused from Deranged Functions of the Prostate Gland."

HENRY

"Magrik's Minerals of Mother Earth Body Builder"? They're labels for patent medicines. Reproductions.

And I did see that lovely dress in her window just the other day!

BEVERLY

(with a flounce)

What are patent medicines?

HENRY

You've heard of those "remedies" people used to buy &emdash; before the Pure Food and Drug Act? People were buying that kind of stuff by the case. Getting hooked on codeine and cocaine and opium.

BEVERLY

Really? That's criminal!

HENRY

It was legal. Coke was a patent medicine. Coca-Cola. Same stuff as on the sign painted on the wall of the liquor store. It's the real thing.

BEVERLY

How did they get them patented?

HENRY

They didn't. See on the lithographs there where it says in that real old-timey scripty lettering "REG U.S. PAT OFF"? It stands for "registered U.S. patent office". So they were called patent medicines. Because they trademarked the name, like "Reverend Naar" or "Dr Sifford's" or no, wait, you can't trademark a real name, just a fake name like Excedrin or Valium; anyway, trademarks are handled by the Patent Office, so these snake oil salesmen could be "Registered with the U.S. Patent Office." Get it? They couldn't actually patent that kind of dope. But they could...

BEVERLY

Got it. When was that?

HENRY

A few years ago. Then after that we had regulations. Now we have deregulations.

BEVERLY

What about this one that says "DNA"? What's really in that?

HENRY

DNA. It's mostly empty. It's got a few milligrams of calf thymus DNA in it. I bought it from a catalog.

BEVERLY

"Doc Watson's Engineered DNA? To Alleviate All Ills, Innate or Acquired?"

HENRY

Funny, huh?

A pause.

BEVERLY

What's this plant here? I've never seen a plant like that before.

HENRY

It's a potato.

BEVERLY

That is not a potato. Where is it from?

HENRY

It's from ... uh, it was grown in Lafayette... I brought it here from Lafayette in a plastic bag and replanted it in that planter.

BEVERLY

It looks very odd. I never saw a potato with flowers like that.

HENRY

Those are leaves.

BEVERLY

And these leaves, I suppose they're flowers?

HENRY

Sort of. See, this plant was made by fusion of protoplasts from two different varieties of potatoes. You strip the cell walls to make protoplasts, mix the cells or actually the protoplasts together, zap them with a little DC voltage, and they fuse. Then they grow their cell walls back and turn into plants. Potatoes.

BEVERLY

Designer plants ... Engineered potatoes.

HENRY

One of a kind...God didn't make them.

The music from Tamino's ode to Pamina's portrait from Mozart's Die Zauberfloete is stitched in to the clarinet and piano music. This piece is performed by a soprano:

PAMINA

Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön,

Wie noch kein Auge je gesehn!

Ich fühl'es, wie dies Götterbild

Mein Herz mit neuer Regung füllt.

Dies Etwas kann ich zwar nicht nennen

Doch fühl ich's hier wie Feuer brennen.

Soll die Empfindung Liebe sein?

Ja, ja, die Liebe ist's allein.

O wenn ich sie nur finden könnte!

O wenn sie doch schön vor mir stande!

Ich wurde, wurde, warm und rein,

Was wurde ich? Ich wurde sie völl Entzucken

An diesen heissen Busen drucken

Und ewig ware sie dann mein.

Strong, perfect notes pulse from the tape cassette. Beverly is stirring her appointed pot, listening to the aria, gradually getting into a meditation on each note as the fidelity of the late-model electronics in Henry's living room dutifully transmits the digitally encoded voice of a very sincere and touching human effort. And then back into the Clarinet Quintet. (There exists an arrangement of The Magic Flute for piano and voice.)

HENRY

Beautiful, isn't it?

Henry looks up from his chopping block and over at the stove where Beverly stirs. She looks at him, quite relaxed and unpressured. Henry may have only been fishing for a compliment on his stereo set.

Beverly takes it upon herself to turn down the volume on the fish stock. Henry notices her fooling with the knobs, and looks over to see what alterations in his procedure she is making. He goes back once again to his chopping block, satisfied that Beverly knows her way around a kitchen.

They listen to the opera for several minutes, and eventually the aria comes to an end. Cries of "Brava" are followed by thunderous applause, followed by Beverly setting her wooden stirrer down in its appointed ceramic spoonrest, and clapping. Henry only smiles, pleased to have brought his dinner companion such a pleasant performance.

Henry finishes chopping the food into delicate morsels, then fires up his stove to accomplish the quick stir-frying of several different types of ingredients at once.

The stereo set is back to the Clarinet Quintet.

Henry scoops up five large dishes and one smaller one, balances them neatly on his arms, and walks them out to the balcony of his apartment. On the balcony there is a white painted metal table with a glass top, and two chairs made from bronze rods soldered together. Henry invites Beverly to take a seat, which she does.

HENRY

Help yourself.

BEVERLY

Thanks. What goes with what?

HENRY

Ah yes, some of it might require a bit of explanation. The white stuff here goes with the orangeish material here.

BEVERLY

Good. Were you a chef? Or a laboratory technician?

HENRY

Better sample the food first. Appearances can be deceiving. No I have never been a chef, just a cook. And I waited on tables in college for a few months.

BEVERLY

So what do you do for a living. I'm sorry, really I never ask people that. But haven't I seen you before? Oh, I'm sorry, that sounds dumb &emdash; but I've been meaning to ask you something. Are you the same person I saw at a little machine shop a while ago? Like months ago?

HENRY

L and E?

BEVERLY

Yes! That was you!

HENRY

L and E! That was you!

(pause)

Did you ever get the parts you wanted? They must have gotten it right by the third visit.

BEVERLY

Yes. In fact I did.

(pause)

When I first saw you at that machine shop, I was so rushed. Actually, I saw you once at the tennis court. You know, the one over by the Plunge where you have to bring your own net? Isn't that funny how we ran into each other three times in the same place? You said, "We've got to stop meeting like this."

(laughs)

You were so deadpan! Like we were on a movie set.

HENRY

But you asked me a question. What do I do for a living. I make gadgets for scientific laboratories. Ever since we all got laid off at Pixar. That machine shop is a regular stop.

BEVERLY

Some day you will tell me about the gadgets. All I saw was a little brass gear. It was very nice, like jewelry.

HENRY

Yes, they do good work. That one had thirty-two teeth.

BEVERLY

What a coincidence! So do I!

Beverly laughs, very heartily.

HENRY

Good beer, isn't it?

BEVERLY

Yes, very good. Perfectly natural.

Beverly is chewing on some of the orangeish material with the white sauce.

BEVERLY (cont.)

Don't you want to ask what I was doing there?

HENRY

Yes, I suppose I do. I just didn't want to seem nosey.

BEVERLY

Well, it's okay. I work at a company that rents computers.

HENRY

Right. Hertz rents cars; you rent computers.

BEVERLY

I work in the office.

HENRY

So how did you get involved with the shaft from the machine shop?

BEVERLY

It was a shaft for a pulley, and those guys at the machine shop couldn't get the bearings to sit on it right. I made all the phone calls and then ended up having to get involved with it.

HENRY

The measurements on it and everything?

BEVERLY

We ordered a replacement part &emdash; an assembly &emdash; but we needed a shaft right away, so it seemed like a good idea to have one made.

HENRY

(nodding his head)

So the shop made one?

BEVERLY

They tried to. They made one but it was too long. It didn't fit. Actually, it was the right length but it was relieved too far between the lands where the bearings go.

HENRY

You seem to know a thing or two about it. About machinery. That was a big shaft for a computer.

BEVERLY

It was for a printer.

HENRY

It's a big shaft for a printer.

BEVERLY

It's a Printronix L20. It's real old. It's a line printer. It prints a whole line at one time, zap zap zap zap, and the paper billows out the back, and it puts out just a ton of paper. It's all capitals, of course. And a lot of it is trash. Really generates a lot of trash.

HENRY

Good trash? High grade?

BEVERLY

Right. You must be in environmental. We got this printer from the University. From the Political Science department. Out of the Richmond surplus place by the Ford plant. They print out just tons of stuff that nobody ever looks at. It's really old, like from the Sixties.

HENRY

What on earth do you use it for?

BEVERLY

Cheap books. You can print a couple hundred page book for a dime.

HENRY

All in capital letters.

BEVERLY

All in capital letters. On eleven by fourteen computer paper. And then you hire an artist to draw a fancy set of covers for it, and have the covers printed on a fancy press.

HENRY

Because people buy a book because of the cover. That's brilliant. And that's how you ended up at the machine shop. Because the press &emdash; I mean, the printer &emdash; broke down. Do you know a lot about machinery?

BEVERLY

I used to be a sculptor. That's how I ended up renting out computers.

HENRY

How was that?

Beverly hands him an elegantly sculpted piece of bread.

BEVERLY

I once filled up a truck...a semi...an eighteen wheeler...a tractor-trailer...with sculptures. The truckdriver said,

(in Okie)

"I don't care fer it much muhsef, but it's art, Aaaah reckon." Another thing he used to say was, "I'm not macho, I'm a trucker." Anyway, you can see one of mine at Eighteenth and Telegraph. It's the aluminum one with the yellow paintjob. So I fell in love with this trucker, and I used to do his books for him, and I noticed that the trailer rental company he rented trailers from seemed to be making a lot of money. And the trucker got well when he was taking other people to take their truckdriver test at the Motor Vehicle Department. With the rental trailers. So where I work now we rent computers to people who want to learn how to drive a computer. Get it?

HENRY

Got it.

BEVERLY

That's how I found out about the Point. He used to stop at the Point Marina Inn.

HENRY

That's the place that looks like a truckstop? Never been there. Is the food good?

BEVERLY

The margaritas are good.

(pause)

You know how they say truckers know where to eat? I'll tell you what that means. It means if you see a bunch of trucks all squeezed over on the side of the road, like this, in front of a place that's just a place to eat, like a little place with no rooms, no pool, no parking lot, no barmaids in bikinis, no nothin', just "EAT"; that's a good place to eat.

HENRY

So what happened to the truckdriver? I mean, to you and the truckdriver.

BEVERLY

Trucker.

HENRY

Pardon me, the trucker.

BEVERLY

He used to haul stuff all over the place. Big yellow forklifts and red farm tractors and gigantic bulldozers. Out of Peoria, and Moline, and then back from San Leandro Caterpillar.

And then one time he hauled a plastic whale, like fifty feet long, all the way to Wisconsin. To a museum. To a show about whales. The show was awful &endash;&endash; big blown up old photographs of whaling boats at full cook and guys standing around with flencing irons.

But you should have heard the other guys on their CB's: "Hey I think I took a few too many of those little white pills a while back 'cause there goes Jonah and the whale on a forty footer." All those little towns in the middle of nowhere, and then there's a whale, you know?

And then there wasn't as much of that, the big tractors and bulldozers, and then all there was, was hauling pigs fifteen miles over to Santa Fe.

HENRY

Pigs?

BEVERLY

Piggybacks. Trailer on a Flatcar. Golden Pig Service. Hauling Pigs is like being a shortorder cook in a greasy spoon.

HENRY

Compared to what?

BEVERLY

Compared to what? Compared to being a five star chef in a destination resort. I don't know.

(pause)

It's okay. You wouldn't understand.

HENRY

Okay.

(pause)

Hey, what finally happened to the trucker?

BEVERLY

He ... uh ... piled it up. He wrecked.

HENRY

He died? He got in a big wreck. And he died.

BEVERLY

Four o'clock in the morning. He drove his rig into a bridge abutment. Nobody else around. Middle of nowhere. Straight into a concrete bridge abutment. All by himself. The front tire was still spinning when I got there. Around and around.

HENRY

Oh. Let's not talk about old boyfriends. He might be listening.

(pause)

Do you still make art? Sculpture?

BEVERLY

No.

HENRY

What happened?

BEVERLY

I went to Art School. A few years of that and I've never wanted to pick up a welding rod since.

HENRY

(long pause)

So you had to go back to the machine shop again. What was wrong the second time?

BEVERLY

The same thing.

HENRY

They made the same mistake twice?

BEVERLY

The first man wasn't there, and the second man copied the first man's work. It took a few hours, and then I stopped back, and that's when I saw you. Again.

HENRY

So it all worked out and the machinery is up and running?

BEVERLY

Up and running. Up and running. That sounds quite anthropomorphic, or animistic, or something.

HENRY

It's just a phrase. I'm sorry to hear you had so much trouble with the shaft. These things can be a headache.

BEVERLY

Do you deal with them a lot? That crazy German guy always yelling about "pictures"?

HENRY

Off and on. Sometimes things are more on paper, sometimes they are more concrete.

BEVERLY

Is it classified, or secret, or something?

HENRY

No, no, nothing like that.

BEVERLY

You give such short answers.

HENRY

I'm sorry. The work I do is kind of esoteric, so I have learned to try to not bore people too much with it.

BEVERLY

Do you find it boring?

HENRY

No, no, I find it quite fascinating.

BEVERLY

What was the first gadget you ever made?

HENRY

It was a ... a chicken cooker.

BEVERLY

(laughing)

That's very funny. Was it a chrome-plated chicken cooker? Was it a rhodium-plated chicken cooker?

HENRY

It was a stainless steel chicken cooker. But it's a long story.

BEVERLY

I like stories. It's a good way to pass the time between drinks.

Beverly laughs.

HENRY

Drinks! Right. I have the sake warming up, I'll go get it. And would you like some dessert with your story, or just skip the story and have some dessert?

Henry fetches a linzertorte and a sake pitcher with two cups from the kitchen on a tray and carries it out to the patio.

HENRY (cont.)

(yelling, from the kitchen)

So tell me, did you ever have dirty, underdone chicken?

BEVERLY

(yelling back)

No. Well, maybe at a picnic.

HENRY

Precisely. Every year at the Biophysics picnic we had dirty underdone chicken.

BEVERLY

I'm not quite following you.

(pause)

Hey, that's from Rosemary's.

HENRY

So it is.

(acting it out)

You know, you put the chicken on the barbecue, and everybody's hungry, and when it's sort of done somebody says "Are any of these done?" and you say "No, they've only been on there twenty- five minutes" and then five minutes later another guy walks up and says "That one looks done." So the first guy gets nothing and the second guy is back in five minutes looking a little green, like with chicken blood and little bits of chicken veins on his shirt, and he's putting the chicken back on the fire.

BEVERLY

Oh. So you....

HENRY

(still acting it out)

We made some racks. In the shop. They looked like stretchers, the kind you carry bodies on. The cloth part of the stretcher if it were a stretcher was stainless steel mesh. The kind you make animal cages out of. Quarter inch by quarter inch. Regulation stuff. Good for making little torture boxes to put fat white rabbits in so you could inject toxins into their little pink footpads. Anyway there was a whole roll of this quarter inch by quarter inch mesh and we spotwelded a few yards of it into four of these stretchers. And the stretchers were wired together in twos, and then on the day of the picnic, they were carted up the hill and the first set of two was loaded up with pieces of chicken. On the stainless steel table, that used to be the backsplash from a sink. Nice clean chicken. All wired in place with little pieces of stainless steel wire. And get this &emdash; it was so wired up, nobody could get their grubby little fingers on any of the chicken unless the chief barbecuer said so. You grabbed them like this every five minutes, and turned them over like this and smeared some nice fresh marinade on them. And every half hour you started a new one, so every half hour you had clean, well done chicken. It was like an experimental protocol. It was &emdash; well, hell, I mean, it was down to a science, goddamnit. It was elegant.

BEVERLY

This is great. So how does it end? The chicken was poisoned.

HENRY

No, hell no, the chicken was great. Everybody said so.

BEVERLY

Uh huh. What was the problem?

HENRY

(still acting it out)

So imagine this &emdash; I'm driving in to the parking lot, a year later, and I see Isaac the animal keeper. Keeper of Rats and Rabbits, Cleaner of Cages, down on his hands and knees scrubbing the chicken cookers. One year old chicken grease and one year old burned-on chicken skin. And Isaac hadn't even been to the picnic. He didn't even know what the goddamned things were for! And Isaac's black! He's the only black male working in the building, except for the guy who ran the stockroom. And he's cleaning up after a bunch of white people, on his hands and knees. Cleaning up old dead chicken. "Isaac," I said, "what are you doin'?" "Jes' doin' my job, like Dr. Milman tolt me."

(a very long pause)

A few months later I figured out that I was just another house nigger doin' what I was tolt to. Just like Isaac.

(another very long pause)

Just like ... Oppenheimer. The difference is, Isaac's blue collar and Oppenheimer was white collar. In the Twenties, Henry Ford said "I could hire one half of the working class to kill the other half." Blue collar. So in the Forties, the Government hired half of the physicists like Oppenheimer to kill the other half. With a nuclear shotgun. White collar . Scientists. They're so smart, they dug their own grave.

Like Milman. Dr Milman's wife kept coming in the laboratory building when she was pregnant, and I told her that was wrong, she shouldn't do that, there were biohazard signs everywhere. And her husband worked on viruses. Animal viruses. And he was like ... an amateur virologist, a chemist who was trying to be relevant. And then six months later, somebody told me &endash;&endash; it must have been two in the morning, in the lab &endash;&endash; that Milman had a kid, and the kid died when it was only nine days old. And then I looked around, at all the test tubes and bottles and centrifuges, and I put down what I was doing and I walked out.

BEVERLY

(long pause)

And that, is the unabridged monologue of the chrome plated chicken.

HENRY

We hardly knew each other the first time chicken came up.

BEVERLY

Henry, don't you see that we knew a lot right off the top? That a whole pile of information was transmitted in a big chunk? That we knew...

HENRY

Like love at first sight? Cupid's arrow? Or you mean something more abstract, something about communication, like a hundredth monkey phenomenon, where we already knew most of the important things about each other before we said anything. Or very much, at any rate.

Beverly wishes he wouldn't digress quite so much.

HENRY (cont.)

You know.... that's the point.

Nineteen.

CURTAIN

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