4-H Club was first presented by the Playwrights Unit at the Cherry Lane Theatre in September 1965, with the following cast: Paul B. Price, John Fink, and Kevin O’Connor. It was directed by Charles Gyns.
An empty stage except for a small kitchen extreme upstage left. Three flats compose the walls of the kitchen with a swinging door in the upstage wall. On the floor downstage left of the kitchen is a hot plate with a coffeepot on it. The floor of the kitchen is littered with paper, cans, and various trash. There is a garbage can in the upstage right corner. The walls are very dirty. The lighting should be equal for the whole stage with no attempt to focus light on the kitchen. The lights come up slowly. JOHN is downstage facing the audience kneeling beside the hot plate. He is stirring something in the pot with a spoon. BOB stands in the middle of the kitchen jumping up and down and laughing wildly. JOE stands upstage beside the door with a broom. He is hitting the door with the broom and laughing with BOB. They are all dressed in torn, grimy clothes. BOB and JOE laugh hysterically and fall to their knees. They fall on the floor and roll around stomping their feet. They stop laughing. A pause. JOHN hits the spoon on the pot several times.
JOHN: You can’t call it coffee anymore. Brown powder for coffee, white powder for cream, saccharin for sugar. Water’s the only thing that stays the same. Put it all together and it comes out coffee.
BOB: Put it all together.
JOHN: I am.
JOHN: Three colored waters.
(He pours water out of the pot into three coffee cups; he hands a cup to BOB, and a cup to JOE, then sits on the floor with the last cup. BOB and JOE sit; a pause as they all sit and drink from the cups. BOB slurps, a pause, JOE slurps loudly, JOHN slurps even louder. They all stand suddenly and smash the cups on the floor. BOB and JOHN start kicking the pieces back and forth across the kitchen.)
JOE: Hey! Hey! Cut it out! Stop!
(He grabs the broom and tries to sweep up the pieces as JOHN and BOB continue kicking them.)
Cut it out! Stop it! We got to keep this place neat! Cut it out! Stop!
(BOB and JOHN stop and watch JOE as he sweeps the pieces into a pile.)
JOHN: That’s very nice, Joe.
JOE: Thanks.
JOHN: It’s neat the way you’re sweeping that all up nice and neat.
JOE: Thanks.
JOHN: Could I do it, Joe?
JOE: Nope.
JOHN: Come on.
JOE: Nope.
(A pause as JOE continues sweeping. He gets the pieces into a pile, then looks at JOHN and BOB. BOB and JOHN kick the pieces all over the floor, then run out the door laughing. JOE looks after them, then starts sweeping again.)
I don’t care myself. I mean it doesn’t matter to me about the neatness part of it. I was thinking in terms of someday having bare feet and walking in here and getting cut.
(He continues sweeping.)
That’s all. I’m leaving the country anyway, so it doesn’t matter.
(He stops and yells at the door.)
It don’t make no difference! Hear me?
(He starts sweeping again.)
Not just glass, either. There’s bottle caps and tin can edges and razor blades too. All the stuff that cuts is bad for bare feet. That’s all I was thinking of as far as sweeping goes. As far as clean goes, if I was thinking of clean we could get a fire hose in here and blast the walls and the floors and the stove. Just a great huge blast of hot water. That would do it.
(He goes to the garbage can and drags it over to the pile of glass. He puts the pile into the can as he continues talking.)
You’d need permission, I guess. How much would it cost to hire a fireman for one day to blast this place? I don’t think he’d do it. It would knock down the walls, anyway. It would probably wash the stove out into the audience. It’d take a week to dry anyway. There’d be puddles of water all over the floor.
(He drags the garbage can back into the corner, then crosses down to the hot plate.)
No good. Leave it as it is for the time being. I’m going anyway.
(He looks into the coffeepot.)
(JOHN enters through the door eating an apple. He stands upstage of the kitchen watching JOE and eating the apple with loud crunches.)
Water and powder. That’s kind of bad when you think about it. If a fire starts, all they do is knock down the walls with blasts of water. They have to build all over again anyway.
JOHN: (Still upstage) It puts the fire out, though.
JOE: (Without turning around) Yeah, but the walls are all broken down. Hunks of wet wood and pieces of cement all broken to pieces. Do they put floods out with fire? Nope. It works the other way around.
JOHN: It’s chemical. Oxygen. Water cuts off oxygen. Simple.
JOE: Then all the firemen stand around in puddles of water and grin. The fire’s been stopped and all the people stand there in puddles of water looking at this mound of rubbish with smoke rising off it. Then the firemen grin some more and coil up the hoses and put them back on the trucks and ride off into the night grinning and waving. And all the people stand there looking at this mound of rubbish.
(He turns around suddenly and looks at JOHN.)
JOHN: What?
JOE: An apple!
JOHN: Yeah.
JOE: Where’d you get it?
JOHN: It’s mine.
JOE: Where’d you get it?
JOHN: None of your business.
(JOE approaches JOHN slowly; JOHN backs up.)
JOE: Come on, John. That’s a brand-new red apple.
JOE: So it crunches.
JOHN: Crunches?
JOE: Crunches. It sounds good.
(JOE approaches JOHN slowly. JOHN backs up in a circle around the kitchen.)
JOHN: It is good. It’s a “Washington Delicious.”
JOE: It looks delicious, John.
JOHN: Get back.
JOE: I’ve eaten green apples before, but never a bright red one.
JOHN: Green ones are for cooking.
JOE: Red and crunchy.
JOHN: Yeah. Get back!
JOE: A “Washington Delicious.”
JOHN: Look, stay away from my apple, Joe.
JOE: Apple juice! We could make a lot of apple juice.
JOHN: I’m eating it!
(He takes big bites out of the apple as JOE continues backing him up.)
JOE: Take it easy! You’re eating it all up.
JOHN: It’s mine, stupid! Of course I’m eating it.
JOE: What about the juice?
JOHN: That was your idea. Get back.
JOE: We could salt it.
JOHN: No salt!
JOE: We could cut it into little slices and put salt on it. Come on, John. Diced apple is what they call it.
(They go faster in a circle, JOHN backing up and eating the apple as JOE follows.)
We’d leave the skin on it for more protein. We could eat the seeds and boil the core. Apple-core soup we could have. We’d put salt in that too. Salt and pepper. Maybe some sugar and salt and pepper. It’d last for days, John. A whole week of diced-apple soup and sugar. Stewing. That’s a whole stewing apple you have in your hand. A bright red “Washington Delicious” stewing apple for us to eat!
(JOHN runs out the door laughing. JOE yells at the door, standing in the middle of the kitchen.)
Fuck your apple, John! Apples grow on trees! Green and red ones, John! As many as you can carry in your pockets and stuffed inside your shirt! One apple is nothing compared to what I’ve seen! And I’ve seen plenty, John! Don’t forget that! I’ll bring some when I get back! I’ll bring all the apples I can get my hands on! A ton! There’s apples all over, you know. Not just in Washington!
(He starts talking to himself. He walks aimlessly around the kitchen kicking pieces of trash on the floor.)
“Washington Delicious” is a brand name. It doesn’t fool anybody. They grow all over the place. It’s a stupid thing to name apples anyway. “Florida Oranges.” There’s another one. “Maine Cherries!” “Wisconsin Cheese!” “Minnesota Watercress!” “Arizona Spinach!”
(He starts kicking the trash violently and yelling.)
“New Jersey Cottage Cheese!” “Nebraska Mayonnaise!” “Oklahoma Malted Milk!” “California Scrambled Eggs!” “Viet Nam Corn on the Cob!” “Mexico Peanut Butter!” “Alaska Turnips!”
(He stops, crosses downstage and looks into the coffeepot. A pause.)
Hey, John! Hey, John and Bob! Do you want some coffee? That water’s boiling. It’s all hot and ready. Hot boiling coffee for you people if you want it!
(He turns to the door.)
Hey! The coffee’s ready! You guys bring the apples in here and I’ll give you some coffee. There’s enough for three! I know you guys have apples! I know you have all the apples you need and I have the coffee!
(BOB enters through the door eating an apple. He stands upstage facing JOE.)
Hi, Bob.
BOB: Hi.
(He stares at JOE and takes large bites out of the apple.)
JOE: Do you want some coffee?
BOB: We broke the cups.
JOE: Yeah, I know.
BOB: We couldn’t drink coffee out of the pot.
JOE: I guess not.
BOB: How would we drink it?
JOE: Well, I don’t know.
BOB: We don’t have any more cups around.
JOE: I guess not.
BOB: The water’s ready, huh?
JOE: Yeah, it’s all ready.
BOB: Gee, I could really go for some coffee.
JOE: Me too.
(They start walking in a circle slowly as they talk to each other, JOE following BOB.)
BOB: It’s too bad we broke all the cups.
JOE: Yeah.
BOB: We could be having coffee right now if it wasn’t for that.
JOE: With cream and sugar.
BOB: However you take it.
JOE: We could be sitting around on the floor talking and drinking.
BOB: Yeah. It would have been nice.
JOE: It’s too bad.
BOB: Maybe we’ll do it sometime.
JOE: Sure.
BOB: We’ll get some more cups and sit around drinking.
(They both start laughing as they circle the kitchen.)
JOE: We’ll even clean the floor so we can sit down.
BOB: We’ll get all this junk out of here.
JOE: We’ll clear it all away. We’ll put it in the can and throw it in the street.
BOB: Throw it out the window.
JOE: We’ll hit somebody in the head.
BOB: It’ll smash somebody in the head.
JOE: That’s a heavy can.
BOB: It’d really smash, wouldn’t it?
(They laugh harder.)
JOE: It’d break to pieces.
BOB: We’d kill a lot of people with that can.
JOE: Little kids and old ladies. Some old lady buying potatoes for her invalid husband.
BOB: Right!
JOE: She’s down there limping along with a bag full of potatoes, and this garbage can smashes her in the head.
BOB: Potatoes all over the street!
JOE: She wouldn’t even know what hit her!
BOB: Then after that there’s a whole crowd of people. They come running from all over. The whole street is running toward this old lady with her head smashed in.
JOE: They’re yelling and screaming and trying to get a look.
BOB: There’s more and more people!
JOE: All over!
BOB: Then do you know what we do?
JOE: What?
BOB: We’re looking out the window, see.
JOE: Yeah?
BOB: And we start throwing apples!
JOE: Right! Right!
(BOB tosses the apple to JOE. They throw it back and forth, laughing harder and still going in a circle.)
BOB: We could hide behind the window so they wouldn’t know where they were coming from.
JOE: Apples out of the sky!
BOB: Right! All these apples sailing through the air and crashing their skulls!
JOE: More and more people come. They think it’s a riot or something.
BOB: They call the cops!
JOE: There’s sirens all over!
BOB: Everybody’s head is bloody from the apples!
JOE: They’re lying in the street moaning and groaning.
BOB: The cops can’t figure it out!
JOE: The cops get hit. There’s dead cops lying on the sidewalk with bloody heads.
BOB: Apples!
JOE: They call the National Guard!
BOB: They bring tanks! A whole string of armored cars and tanks charging up the street.
JOE: Apples from the sky!
JOE: Get back in your houses, ladies and gentlemen! There’s apples falling out here!
BOB: This is an emergency, people!
JOE: We’re going to shoot the sky and we don’t want anyone to get hurt!
BOB: Stay inside your houses! We shall open fire in exactly ten seconds!
(BOB catches the apple and holds it. They both start making gun sounds and firing at the sky. They stop going in a circle.)
JOE: Pow! Blam!
BOB: We’re getting them, ladies and gentlemen! Just stay inside! There’s a lot of apples left!
JOE: Blam! Blam! Blam! I think we’re winning!
BOB: Pow! Blam! I think we’ve done it! (To the audience) Ladies and gentlemen, this is the end of the apples.
(JOHN enters through the door eating an apple. BOB and JOE sit on the floor. JOHN stares at them.)
JOHN: Is there any coffee?
BOB: Nope.
JOE: There’s coffee but no cups.
JOHN: That’s too bad.
(He goes out the door.)
BOB: (Still sitting) We should clean up, you know.
JOE: Yeah.
BOB: Just a little sweeping and some elbow grease.
JOE: I don’t mind sweeping.
BOB: Me either.
JOE: I used to sweep driveways a lot.
BOB: Really?
JOE: Yeah. Leaves. The driveways would get covered with leaves and dirt so I’d sweep them for a quarter.
BOB: A quarter each?
JOE: Yeah. They were long driveways though, so it wasn’t as easy as it sounds.
BOB: I guess not.
JOE: Six in the morning I’d start.
BOB: How come so early?
JOE: I don’t know. I just wanted to get up. I’d do the whole block before eight o’clock.
BOB: That’s pretty fast.
JOE: Sometimes I’d use a hose. Just spray the leaves down the driveway and into the street.
BOB: That was probably faster.
JOE: Yeah. They paid by the job, not by the hour, so it didn’t matter.
(JOHN enters through the door again and stands watching JOE and BOB as they continue to talk. JOHN and BOB eat their apples slowly.)
BOB: I just cut lawns.
JOE: I did some of that too. Trouble was there was this older guy who sort of had a monopoly on all the lawns.
BOB: Oh yeah?
JOE: Yeah. He was old enough to drive, see, and he had a car, a station wagon. He had all kinds of power tools that he used. Power mowers and edgers and hedge clippers. Things like that. And he was a kissy. I mean he’d smile at all the old ladies that owned all the lawns and he’d bring their milk in for them in the mornings and their newspapers. He was like a trained dog, sort of. He even went on errands because some of them couldn’t walk. He’d buy them orange juice and cod liver oil and calcium tablets, all that junk. Then he moved in on them. He started vacuuming their rugs and polishing their silver and washing their dishes. They really loved this guy. He was like their son or something.
JOE: After a while he bought a new car—a truck, rather. A bright red pickup truck, and he painted white letters on the side of it that said “Mike’s Gardening Service.” He wasn’t even out of high school and he owned a whole business. He cut every old lady’s lawn in the whole town. He even had a telephone number in case of emergency.
BOB: Like a doctor.
JOE: Right. They’d call him in the middle of the night sometimes.
BOB: How come?
JOE: I don’t know. But he was making more and more money. Then more old ladies started moving into the town. One after the other. They heard about this guy, see, and they came from all over. They all bought a little white house with a green lawn and a driveway. He was so busy he had to hire some help. He had a whole crew of special gardeners after a while. I was his special driveway sweeper. He had one man for each job and he just came around to check on us. He started wearing a suit and he’d drive up in his truck just to see how we were doing.
(JOHN crosses downstage and looks into the coffeepot as JOE continues.)
He quit school after a while because the business got so big. And the town was growing. A whole town of old ladies with green lawns and white houses. He’d visit them and have tea and cake and talk about their lawns and their driveways. The mayor even gave him a prize for improving the community. Then he started giving speeches at luncheons and benefits. They paid him lots of money to talk in front of all these groups. He’d talk about horticulture and fertilizer and ground-improvement plans. Then he started giving talks on zoning and housing facilities. He drew up a whole plan for a children’s recreation area. All these old ladies were going to let him build a children’s recreation area and pay him to boot. He got bigger and bigger and richer and richer until one day he left the town. He just drove off in a Rolls-Royce or something and all those old ladies died. One at a time.
BOB: What do you mean?
JOE: They just died. Nobody new came to the town after that. The houses got all dirty and the lawns grew out into the driveways and the leaves covered all the sidewalks.
BOB: They died?
JOE: That’s what they said.
(JOHN kneels facing the audience and stares at the audience as JOE continues.)
BOB: Who?
JOE: All the guys. We’d go into the town sometimes on weekends. We had to get a bunch of guys together because we were all scared. We hiked into the town and then waited till it got dark. Those were the rules. It had to be dark. Then one of us would go at a time. Each one of us walked from one end of the town to the other. The thing was, we had to keep our eyes closed. We couldn’t look. We could just feel the sidewalk with our feet. That’s all we had to go on. If we touched the grass we knew we were getting lost. This one guy, Ernie, he got lost once and wandered right into one of the houses. He told us later that he was in this tiny living room with a fireplace. There were all these books lying around on the floor and big tall lamps and yellow lampshades and pictures of swallows and dogs hung on the walls. There was a little round table with a checkerboard and a chess set. Then he told us that he went through this doorway with beaded curtains hanging in it. He walked down this hallway and he could smell all the wallpaper. Then he walked into the huge bathroom that was painted blue and there was this old lady lying on her stomach with a spoon in her hand.
JOHN: The water’s cold!
(He stands still facing the audience.)
JOE: It was just boiling.
JOHN: Now it’s cold.
BOB: It was boiling before, John. We were going to have some coffee.
JOHN: Yeah. Well, cold coffee doesn’t exactly turn me on. I thought you were leaving, Joe.
JOE: I am.
JOHN: When?
JOE: When I can.
JOHN: When can you, Joe?
JOE: I’m not sure.
JOHN: Well, before you were yelling about it, and now you’re not sure. You were yelling, “It doesn’t matter because I’m leaving the country!”
JOE: I know.
JOHN: Then you started yelling about apples or something.
BOB: We both were.
JOHN: I remember.
BOB: We were both doing that.
JOHN: I remember! I remember! Now the water’s cold and there aren’t any cups!
JOE: We broke them.
BOB: You broke one of them, John. Remember?
JOHN: I remember that! Seems like we could make some soup or something.
JOE: Sure.
JOHN: Sure! And sweep! Clean up the kitchen, goddammit! We can’t eat apples in a dirty kitchen!
JOHN:
(He turns upstage and paces back and forth kicking the debris on the floor.)
It’s all right, John! It’s all right! Rats don’t eat much. They don’t eat apples. Rats eat cheese. Rats and mice and everything nice.
JOE: There’s no mice, John.
JOHN: There’s no mice, John! The mice ran away. They went away for food. They left the country! A whole troop of mice marched out the door and said, “Fuck it! We’re going to go out! We’re going to hunt some food on our own! We’re going to get fat and lie around burping all day!”
BOB: We’ll clean it up.
JOHN: Clean it up! Clean it up! Forget it! The apples are running out and the mice don’t care anyway so just forget it!
(He goes out through the door.)
BOB: (Yelling at the door) John! There aren’t any mice around here! John!
JOE: (Yelling at the door) John! The mice are all gone! There’s none left!
JOHN: (Offstage) There’s some around. I’ve seen them.
BOB: Where?
JOHN: Inside the walls. In the garbage can. All over!
BOB: They’re all gone, John!
JOHN: You just haven’t looked!
BOB: I’ll look.
(He looks in the garbage can and then under the hot plate.)
JOHN: They’re hard to see. They’re grayish and small so they blend right into the floor. You probably can’t find them.
JOHN: They’re there if you look.
BOB: I don’t see them, John.
JOHN: They’re there!
(JOE looks in the garbage can, then searches around the floor. BOB does the same.)
BOB: They couldn’t just hide, John. It’s impossible.
JOE: We’d hear them wriggling around.
JOHN: (Still off) They’re very quiet.
BOB: They’re just small little animals. They wouldn’t have a chance.
JOE: We’d kill them!
JOHN: They bite. They have sharp little razor teeth and they cut.
(BOB and JOE start kicking the trash and looking for the mice.)
JOE: They’re all skinny and weak, John. They don’t stand a chance.
BOB: One smash of the foot and it’d be all over.
JOHN: They’re tough.
JOE: They’re too weak, John.
BOB: They’re flimsy little animals. They run.
JOHN: They don’t scare easy.
BOB: They’re all gone, John.
JOE: You just stomp them on the head, John.
(They kick the trash and look on the floor.)
BOB: You break their necks.
JOE: We’d hear them if they were in here. We’d hear them moving around.
BOB: There’s none left, John.
JOHN: They’re there.
JOE: All you do is squash them!
BOB: (Stomping his foot on the floor) Smash!
JOE: Squash!
BOB: Smash!
(BOB and JOE stomp their feet loudly on the floor, yelling the lines.)
JOE: Come out, mice! Smash!
BOB: Crush the mice! Crunch! Crunch!
JOE: Little tiny mouse bones! Smash!
JOHN: You’ll never find them! They hide!
BOB: Crunch! Smash!
JOE: Little gray-headed mice!
JOHN: They’re in the walls!
BOB: We’ll smash your heads!
JOE: Come out, mice! Smash!
BOB: Break your backs!
JOE: Smash! Crunch!
BOB: Come out! Come out!
JOE: Little gray mothers! We’ll squash your heads to pieces!
(He goes to the garbage can and dumps it out on the floor. BOB and JOE kick the garbage all over, yelling and screaming. They jump up and down wildly.)
JOE: You don’t stand a chance! We’re big! Squash! Crunch!
BOB: Come out, mice! You’re dead!
JOE: We’ll make some soup!
BOB: You’re dead, mice!
(BOB picks up the broom and hits it against the door.)
JOE: It’s all over, mice! Your time is up!
BOB: Smash! It’s all over! Come out!
JOE: We have big feet, mice! Big strong feet with shoes!
BOB: We’ll bust your heads!
BOB: Come out! Come out!
(The lights black out in the kitchen; the rest of the stage remains in light. JOHN walks slowly into the bare stage area from behind the kitchen. He is eating an apple and carries several apples inside his shirt. He crosses downstage right and stands looking at the kitchen while he eats the apple. BOB and JOE continue yelling inside the kitchen.)
JOE: You don’t have a chance!
BOB: You’ll die if you show your face!
JOE: Come on, chickens! We see you!
BOB: Come out of there!
JOE: We can see your eyes! We know you’re there!
BOB: Show yourself!
JOE: Smashed to death by a foot!
BOB: Crash! Crunch! Die!
JOE: Kill! Smash! Come out of there!
BOB: Give it up, mouse!
JOE: Give it up! Come on out!
BOB: You’re dead!
JOE: We see you! We know you guys!
BOB: We can see you!
JOE: We know you’re there! Come out!
BOB: You guys have had it!
JOE: Come on out!
(They stop banging their feet.)
BOB: All right, you guys, come on. We know you’re in there!
JOE: You can come out now.
BOB: It’s all over, you guys.
JOE: You can come out now.
BOB: You’re not fooling anyone.
JOE: Mouse! Come out. We can see you in there!
BOB: Come out of there before we get you.
JOE: We could tear this place apart with our bare hands. You know that, don’t you?
BOB: We’re bigger than you—let’s face it.
JOE: Mice?
BOB: We have all the strength. You’re too little.
JOE: We’ll wait for you. We’ll wait here all night until you decide.
BOB: You’ll have to come out sooner or later.
JOE: You’re going to be sorry.
(BOB and JOE sit on either side of the kitchen and light cigarettes. JOHN continues to crunch loudly on the apple.)
BOB: John? We’re going to wait for them.
JOHN: Good.
(He leans against the proscenium down right.)
BOB: It won’t take long. If we’re quiet they’ll think we left.
JOHN: OK.
BOB: We could tear the place apart, but it’s easier to wait.
JOHN: Sure.
BOB: So don’t come in for a while.
JOHN: I won’t.
BOB: Good.
JOE: There’s probably just a couple of them anyway, John. It won’t take long to do.
JOHN: Good.
JOE: They might have a family, though, so it may take longer. I mean a whole bunch of babies. We’ll just step on them and sweep them up later.
BOB: There’ll be a little blood, though. We may have to boil some water and scrub the place down. The walls and the floor.
JOE: Yeah. There’ll be some blood on the walls, John. They spurt when you step on them. Especially the babies.
BOB: The babies haven’t grown any fur yet, so they’re more fragile. Their skin is very thin and they just pop open.
JOE: They look like little embryos. They can’t see because their eyes haven’t opened yet. They’re blind, so it’ll be easier to get them.
JOHN: Don’t you think you should be quieter?
JOE: (Whispering) You’re right, John. We have to be quiet, Bob.
BOB: (Whispering) Sit very still.
JOHN: It may take a while, you know.
JOE: (Whispering) It’s all right. We’ll wait.
JOHN: They can hear you breathing. It’s very hard to trick a mouse. I’ve tried everything from baseball bats to machetes. I even tried throwing hatchets, but it was no good.
JOE: (Whispering) He’s right. My uncle even used a shotgun and that didn’t work.
JOHN: I used pistols and swords and everything, and they kept coming back. I sat very still until they showed their heads. Then I’d fire. I emptied a whole chamber into this one mouse and he just limped away.
BOB: (Whispering) Did he die?
JOHN: Nope. He just kept coming back. I kept shooting him and he kept coming back. Then he had lots of babies that followed him around. There was blood all over the house, but none of them died.
JOE: (Whispering) Did they bite?
JOHN: I never let them get that close. I never gave them a chance.
(A pause as JOHN crunches loudly on the apple.)
BOB: (Whispering) Sure wish we had some coffee.
JOE: Yeah.
BOB: (Whispering) I saw a man hit a mouse with a wrench one time and the mouse just ran away.
JOE: (Whispering) Maybe it was a rat. Rats are bigger.
BOB: It might have been a rat. It had a long tail. It didn’t hurt him at all, though. It just made a big cracking sound. He hit him right in the head too.
JOHN: Rats are different. More ferocious. They can actually charge you if they get into a corner.
BOB: (Whispering) It had big huge fangs on each side of its mouth. There was all this green pussy stuff hanging off them.
JOHN: They carry tetanus and different bacteria. Some Indian tribe uses rat pus for poison arrows. It kills the victim instantly.
JOE: (Whispering) They carry that junk on their tails too. And their feet. All you have to do is brush up against them and you die.
JOHN: Rats usually go around in large groups. Ten at a time. They’re like coyotes in that respect. Constantly ravenous. They can never get enough to eat.
(He takes another apple out of his shirt and tosses it up in the air and then catches it. He continues to do this as he talks.)
Baboons too. There’s one kind of baboon called a mandrill that is known as the fiercest animal in the world. I think it’s a toss-up really between the mandrill and the wolverine. Wolverines run in packs too. Twenty or thirty at once.
BOB: (Whispering) They close their eyes in the dark when they know they’re being watched. That way you can’t see them. You can’t see their eyes.
JOHN: I’ll send you some postcards when I get there. They have big color postcards of the mandrills. They’re hard to find because photographers are afraid to go into that area. Only a few have survived.
JOE: (Whispering) We couldn’t tell if they were here or not, Bob. They may be walking around in here right now. I mean if they close their eyes like you said.
BOB: They do.
JOE: Maybe we should make some noise to scare them off.
BOB: No.
JOHN: The country around there is really beautiful. Completely wild. There’s little patches of green woods and tiny lakes where the mandrills go to drink water. There’s a few small villages inhabited by fishermen and hunters.
JOE: We should make some noise, Bob.
BOB: No. Sit still.
JOHN: The plane goes right over the area and you can look out the window and see these long beaches and fishing boats all lined up.
BOB: (Whispering) Sit very still.
JOHN: There’s a guide on the plane who tells you all you need to know about mandrills.
BOB: Very quiet. They’ll never see us.
JOHN: He says they have red and blue faces and no hair on their rumps. They’re about twice as big as a chimpanzee and have brownish red hair.
JOE: Can you see them?
BOB: Shhh!
JOHN: They’re mainly carnivorous but will occasionally eat succulent plants that grow near the lake. Their incisors are surprisingly doglike and they are known to pick their teeth with bones.
JOE: (Whispering) We should make some noise.
BOB: (Whispering) Sit still.
JOHN: The guide shows the specific areas where the mandrills live and warns the passengers to keep clear of them. He says they are extremely temperamental and will charge a human without any provocation. He says they scream in high staccato voices and run on all fours. They charge in groups of four and tear mercilessly at the victim’s throat. They cut the jugular vein and then rip the head off. They eat the brain first, then devour the body. They tear off the arms and legs and carry them back to their mates.
JOE: (Yelling) We have to make some noise!
BOB: (Yelling) No!
(JOE goes to the coffeepot and starts banging it on the hot plate. BOB wrestles with him in the dark.)
(They continue wrestling as JOHN keeps talking.)
JOHN: It’s always good weather for some reason. I mean every time I’ve gone there the sun has always been out and the air has been clear. The water is so blue you can see all the way to the bottom. Clear as a bell.
BOB: Cut it out, Joe!
(JOE keeps banging the pot on the hot plate in a steady rhythm.)
JOE: Noise! We have to make some noise!
BOB: Stop it! No noise!
JOE: Loud! Loud! Loud!
JOHN: Then you land and go to the hotel. The air smells so good you can taste it. They have breakfast all ready for you. It’s sitting there on this glass table in front of a huge picture window. You just sit there and eat and look out over the ocean.
(JOE continues banging the coffeepot in a steady rhythm as the lights dim down slowly.)
BOB: No noise, Joe! Stop! No noise!
JOE: Louder! Get away! Loud! Loud!
JOHN: I’ll send you some postcards. I’ll buy a dozen or so and send one a week. It’s a great place. I’m going to do some swimming too. Floating on my back. You just float and stare at the sky. You just float and stare at the sky. You just float and stare at the sky. You just float and stare at the sky.
(The lights dim out as JOE continues banging the coffeepot in a steady beat.)