The Last Eunuch Marionette

H. L. Dowless

SR & H Enterprises LLC

HLD

 

The Last Eunoch Marionette

 

Cast of Characters 

Marion

Waubash

Jimbo Gaboni

Mickey Val

Robin Val

Annie Gaboni

Nixie

Hera

Mora Ananke

Raziella Media

Event Planner

Selena

Attendants (interchangeable actors)

Lilith

 

Act 1

Scene 1

In Buttercup Meadows

A wood frame cabin farmhouse living room, with a fireplace, a serene landscape painting on either side of the fireplace, a second hand black leather covered sofa, two flea market scrounged leather covered love seats in front of the fireplace. In the center of the sofa and the love seat arrangement, sits a large coffee table that also doubles as a convenient card table, among other things. Behind this living room to the left, is a kitchen, with a small plain enamel covered stove and a basic refrigerator. In front of the couch is the front door.

Enter Marion

On this couch sits Marion, donning nearly new denim jeans and a tee shirt with a picture of a cannon, a Texas state flag on the back, the Alamo and the words Don’t Mess With Texas across the front. He faces the coffee table, dialing hastily using his left index finger, with a black landline phone pressed up tightly to his right ear.

Marion: Hey, Waubash! (speaks in a puppyish voice) You should ride on over here and hang out today. It's Saturday evening man, and us single men have nothing better to do.

Bring a leg of that deer you killed. We’ll cut it up into chops and cook it here on the grill. I have a whole fifth O’ Jack Daniels I bought when I got off work yesterday. We’ll eat like the kings of old! What about it, man? Speak the good word!

Waubash: Sounds fine by me! I had a great time out hunting the king’s deer yesterday.

I reduced that deer into possession, then collected some thirty coon skins and three otters this morning. I’ve made nine hundred dollars, cash, all ready, and I worked only yesterday and today!

Marion: That’s funny how all of these other people are out killing themselves and you just jerk around like you do, working three months here and there on construction shutdowns, drawing unemployment checks for six months or more; then go hunting, fishing, and trapping furs on the sly like you do, turning that really big cash money. I wish I could be like that, man!

Waubash: Yeah, that’s CASH on the great big broad’s booty buns, beau! (chuckles) Well, I’ll show you how. When do you want to learn?

Marion: I’d get caught right off the bat hunting the king’s deer like you do, man! (laughs) A poor high school history teacher can’t afford to take such chances. We only have one chance at it, you know. I do love to raise hell, here and there though. (laughs) Bring a gun and we’ll shoot at the moon and stars tonight!

Waubash: Well, look at you, man! I do what I do, yeah, but every time I drop by you have that piece of good lookin’ snoot around at your place; drinking whiskey with you, spending the night, if I understand right. What was her name, now? Hellen, I think it was?

Marion: Maybe, eh? Maybe…It's fun, but I need a new thrill. I’ll tell ya what, man. I’ll trade ya. Take me on one of those big deer hunts out on Nolan Farm Plantation. If you will do that I'll set you up with Hellen. If you make that good enough for me, I promise she’ll make the cut with you too. What about it, jolly mon?

Waubash: I tell ya what, man. You set me up on an’ in, with Robin, the Valley girl, and it's a deal right here!

Marion: You mean that broad I had up in here a week or so ago, with that little girl face, them tig bitties, and that loose, really right ‘n tight caboose?

Waubash: That’s her, man! That’s her, a true dolly to be hugged and loved, dearly.

Marion: (chuckles) How old do you think she is?

Waubash: Maybe thirty, I suppose.

Marion: (laughs) Try forty four, and still yet married one time more!

Waubash: You’re kidding me!

Marion: Not at all, man! (laughs hysterically)

Waubash: Damn! That body looks so scrumptiously tight. I’m slobbering into an overflow right now thinking about a bite!

Marion: She’s tight, for sure, wide open and no slouch at all, holding back on nothing, man! (laughs hysterically)

Waubash: I’m all in for it! It's a deal, man!

Marion: (laughing hysterically) What about next Saturday for the hunt? Sunday evening for the hoochie: coochie date?

Waubash: It's on! Can you sign for her on my end?

Marion: She owes me a good one.

Waubash: (gasps into the phone) I don’t know how you do it, dog!

Marion: Well, you know the law of the streets. All things are possible to a man who know the king’s and the queen’s habits. A shiny schmoot and a good clean snoot, all for an excellent reflective witching moon lune: blossom toot! Know what I mean, dizzy Dean?

Waubash: My gosh, man! (gasps, smacks his lips) I would have never guessed it! And I guess being married doesn’t keep any holes filled, eh? I take it she’ll beat me very well when you hand her the right kind of cane. Am I right or wrong?

Marion: (Laughing hysterically) We’ll speak more about it when you get here, man!

Marion hangs up the phone on the coffee table

Marion Exits

Stage lights gradually dim out

 

 

Act 1

Scene 2

 

In Buttercup Meadows

The wooden farm house living room

Enter Marion

Sitting comfortably on the couch

Somebody knocks suddenly at the front door. Marion rises, walks to the door, opens it.

Enter Waubash

Both walk toward the couch, takes a seat

Marion: That’s a big bag you’re carrying there. How’s life been testing you as of late? (chuckles) Damn it, boy! Look at your rifle there!

As they walk over toward the couch

Waubash: That leg of deer is inside this bag. This rifle is a genuine Mouser, nine millimeter nineteen thirty five bolt action. Still, it shoots like a champ and is a dead ringer at nine hundred yards. If I can see it, I can really reach out and touch it, man. (chuckles) I’ve been doing relatively well lately.

Both sit down on the couch

Marion: Look, now don’t forget about our arrangements this weekend. I’m excited about going on that hunt Saturday. I’ve been hunting maybe twice in my life, but what I want is to be on a true hunt.

Waubash: You going on that hunt isn’t going to be a problem. I’m anxious about Sunday, myself. I remember looking at, sitting down with, and speaking to that Robin chick the other day. I’ve been royally infatuated ever since.

Marion: She is a first place winner in a horizontal situation for sure.

Waubash: What are we gonna use to cut this ham into chops?

Marion: I have a skill saw outside in my shed. I’ll take a large C clamp I have out there, clamp it to my dining table here, then saw it right up in no time.

Waubash: No problem with me on that.

Marion: Want a dose of Jack Daniels? I’ll get that saw and commence cutting up that ham. You can sit back, take shots, and relax while you’re here.

Waubash: Yeah, why not!

Marion arises, grabs the bag with the ham inside it, walks into the kitchen, lays the ham on the counter, picks up the fifth of Jack Daniels from the counter and a couple of shot glasses, then walks back over to the couch. He sits the bottle of liquor and the shot glasses on the coffee table before Waubash, then steps back into the kitchen, vanishing through a side door.

Waubash: Uncaps the liquor, pours a shot, tosses it back, easing back into the couch.

Marion steps back inside the kitchen with the skill saw and the C clamp. He removes the ham from the plastic bag, clamping it to the dining table on the edge of the kitchen. He plugs the skill saw into the wall, then commences sawing the ham into half inch thick chops. Waubash rises from the couch, walking over beside him while he labors along.

Waubash: Son, you’re making headway in no time! You've sawn what, twelve chops already?

Marion: (laughs) I knew we’d be finished up in no time, man. I’ll tell ya what. I’ll finish up this ham. You get the charcoal inside that table top grill yonder, on the counter, and get it started. I’ll take me a few shots, and then we can hang: out some while the charcoal heats up.

Waubash walks over to the counter, removes the top from the grill, fills it with charcoal, pours the starter fluid on it, moves the grill over to the dining table top, then lights the charcoal. He walks back over to the couch where Marion sits, taking shots. He pours himself a shot, then tosses it back.

Marion: Ole Jack is the best, man! Don’t you agree?

Waubash: Smooth as water, but I think Dickel has him beat.

Heavy knock suddenly on the front door

Marion: What’s it, man? Did you call up anybody?

Waubash: No man. Who is that? Were you expecting anybody?

Marion: Naw, let me see.

Marion arises from the couch, walks over toward the front door, opens it.

Enter Jimbo

Jimbo wears faded jeans and a black leather jacket, with the collar upturned. His hair is slicked back and he is filled with mochismo bravado when he speaks, walks, and moves about.

Jimbo: Great gazooks! If it isn’t the one and only! (both arms open wide with palms up) Swims like a fish, runs like a war pony!

Marion: Look who this is, man. If it isn’t ole Jimbo Garoni himself!

Jimbo: In the flesh, the one and only!

Jimbo and Marion walk over toward the couch where Waubash sits, taking shots.

Jimbo: I swear I wish you’d look at that. If it aint damned ole Waubash himself! And sitting there so calmly, soaking back shots of JD on top of that!

Waubash: Have some, on: the: house!

Jimbo: Well I think I just might. I wasn’t expecting such kind generosity on a Saturday Afternoon. What's on for the day, boys?

Marion: Ole Waubash brought over a big leg of fresh kill deer.

Jimbo: (slaps his forehead with his right hand)I should have known! I should have known! Nothing with you has changed, has it, man?

Waubash: Indeed not, except to get better! The grill must be ready by now.

All three walk over to the dining table.

Marion: Hey man, the coals are white. I’m gonna slap these chops on. You want one, Jim?

Jimbo: Wouldn’t miss it for the world, man!

Waubash: So what’s been on with you these days? We haven't heard anything.

Jimbo: Well, I just made it back from Scotland, visiting Annie’s people. It was a good trip. We visited a few castles more, hung out, partied lots. Before that, we had spent two weeks in Cefalu, Italy, my ole hometown. Other than that, I work at the textile mill now and tend my little five acre micro: farm I have, you know.. Life is pretty good, I guess. I can’t complain.

Marion: Well, you are doing better than me. All I do is work like hell, man.

Jimbo: What are you doing these days?

Marion: Still teaching high school history.

Jimbo: And you call that work, man? (laughs, shakes his head) Sheesh!

Marion: Nobody has it made like ole Waubash there. He works construction maybe six months out of the year. Then he draws unemployment, traps furs, deer and bear hunts, making more than most do working any job around here. Certainly doing better than a damned high school teacher. But I am half content with what I have going on.

Jimbo: It will all catch up with him when he’s older. (laughs heartily) We have investment accounts for retirement. He has nothing. He can't do construction for ever. I know all about it. I was once a crane operator. He'll get slower and the competition will have better technology to catch him with, and be much younger. However, if both of us could still get on in construction, with a real union.. Things would be so much different. A good crane operator can travel the whole wide world. Dock jobs can be outstanding! No job anywhere in America beats working with the Long Shoreman.

Marion: Let me tell you about our upcoming plans, man. Waubash is taking me on a hunt up in the haunted Nolan Plantation woods tract. But you won’t believe who he wants me to set him up with.

Jimbo: (chuckles) I can only imagine!

Marion: He wants me to set him up with Robin, the Valley girl!

Jimbo: Hell man, ole rocking Robin! (laughs heartily, pausing in gasps) I know her old man, but I won’t dare tell. What’s in it for her, a new loony blossom toot?

Marion: Never fails.

Jimbo: (laughs, drops his head, shakes it from side to side) Son of a bitch! Ole Mickey is a true blue psychopath, though. Let me warn you outright.

Waubash: Hey, look men, the meat is good already. Let's slap it down on a platter and get this party: event going today!

Jimbo: Too bad Annie had to work today. She doesn’t know what she missed. She would get a good laugh out of these tales I’m hearing. She knows ole rowdy raunchy Robin well. Being a case: worker in mental health introduces one to all the crazy basket cases in the county. I’m shocked both of you haven’t met her on the job yet, personally.

The platters are served out on the table. The meat chops are taken off the grill, then placed into the platters. The red wine is poured into the glasses. All three salute to life and cheer.

Everybody: Here’s to us; who’s like us? Very few — and they’re all dead. Long may your chimney smoke!

Stage lights gradually dim

Jimbo, Waubash, Marion exit

 

Act 1

Scene 3

On Nolan Plantation

Deep in the woods at night by the mansion ruins

Enter Waubash, Marion

Carrying long guns

Waubash: (whispering) Walk quietly, toe down with a backward roll upon the heel. The deer come out to these ruins in the moonlight to eat this cool weather grass growing nearby.

Marion: (whispering, puppyish voice) What do we do if somebody comes out here?

Waubash: (whispering as he walks) We’ll both get down on the ground and take cover immediately.

Marion: Take cover? Where, pray tell?

Waubash: See how this land rolls? See the grass, the thick holly and cassina bushes? For example here, we’d crawl into these cassina bushes and get down behind that land roll yonder.

Marion: Wow! Aren't there thorns inside those bushes?

Waubash: Probably cat claw and bamboo thorns.

Marion: Oh my! What about snakes?

Waubash: Maybe a few, like the pit viper or the copperhead. Near the water we might run into moccasins, a type in the King Cobra family.

Marion: (gasps heavily, all wide eyed) And you are not scared?

Waubash: No reason to be, as of yet.

Marion: Have you ever run into any snakes when you are out like this?

Waubash: Oh yes, many a: time.

Marion: (gasps) Oh my! What else?

Waubash: Big boar coon, alligators face to face, from time to time.

Marion: What scared you the most?

Waubash: Angry farmers and too many relentlessly pursuing wardens, of late. I’ve laid up in moccasin infested waters all night long until the light of day, on way: too many occasions, simply waiting for a posse of ‘em to pass me by. Many have thermal detection devices and blood hounds to boot. Deep flowing water is often my only saving grace. Aside from the time a month ago, when I crawled up inside a half rotten cow carcass out on the far side of Dewhocky Johnson’s dairy farm, over by Harlan Hammer’s still site, where the deer cabbage, the cattails, and the tuckahaw root grows thickest.

In the soft glow of a half moon, an opening in the near distance is noticeable.

Waubash: (whispers, points ahead, walks crouching) Look! We’re nearing the old mansion ruins.

The two men crouch in cover by the edge of the opening, whispering, pointing

Waubash: (points, whispers): See the ruins in the soft moonlight?

Marion: Yes, and fairly well at that. It's amazing (smiles, gazes around).

Waubash: See the grassy clover area to the left of these ruins?

Marion: I see it clearly, man.

Waubash: That whole area is covered in deer tracks. It seems like somebody had ‘em penned up and turnt ‘em a: loose. I saw at least one rocking: chair: head buck in that mass of tracks.

Marion: Other than meat, how else would that deer be of value to us?

Waubash: That head and cape dressed out and tanned, would fetch in a thousand dollars at The Great Creek rendezvous over at Coweta in a month or so from now.

Marion: Hellen and Robin were talking about that at work not too long ago. They say it's only a culture show during the day time, but it gets really wild at night in that place.

Waubash: Places right index finger over his lips, points toward the grassy clover area.

Three deer slowly break cover from the woods, walking very cautiously into the grassy clove area. A fourth one walks up behind the other three. For an instant, a glint of moonlight from its massive antlers pierce the eyes of Marion and Waubash.

Waubash: (Raises his rifle to his shoulder)

Marion: (Raises his rifle to his shoulder)

Waubash: (Fires his gun, which seems to only puff. The big buck instantly melts to the ground)

Marion: (Fires his gun, which roars like a cannon. A small doe collapses, then rises, walks several steps, falls into bushes on the edge of the grassy clover area)

Marion: What kind of gun is that you have? It hardly made any sound at all.

Waubash: (whispers) A twenty five twenty, bolt action, downloaded beneath the subsonic line, and hand loaded with heavier striking: lead. What kind is yours? It woke the dead, son.

Marion: A Winchester thirty thirty, bolt action repeater.

Waubash: Not much good in this business of ours. We always want to be like smoke when we pass through a territory, not make a sound, never leave a trace. (glances around, inhales deeply) Enough watching. Let's move on and get them two deer into good cover ASAP.

The two lay their guns down, then ease outside of the safety zone found in the cover, into the clearing, crouching as they move out. They both seize hold of the big buck, then pull him into the area where their guns lay. Both return to the doe, seize hold of her legs, then transport her into the same area.

Marion: What are we going to do now?

Waubash: (Unsheaths his Marine Corps K: bar knife, whispers) We’re gonna gut these two deer. We’ll knock the head off yours and the back feet. (labors smoothly and methodically)

The two deer are fully gutted. Both men pull the deer up onto their backs.

Marion: Do you hear something moving through the brush? Somebody is coming, man!

Waubash: Drop down and take cover here.

Enter Mickey Val

A hulking bearded man

Smashes through the woods from behind the ruins, into the clearing. Glances angrily from side to side.

Mickey Val: I heard that gunshot! I know you’re out here somewhere. This is Val country now! We got the rights to all of this! We’ll find you. I already have the warden on this matter right here tonight. We’ll put the dogs on you and find ya, whoever ya are!

Huffs back in the direction from which he came.

Stage lights gradually dim out

Stage lights gradually brighten

Marion and Waubash arise with the two deer on their backs, walking away quietly though the woods in the opposite direction.

They pause by the pickup truck, backed up into a convenient chop: out in the woods cover.

The two deer carcasses are dropped down upon a canvas in the bed of the truck.

Waubash: We both must vacate this combat zone quickly, quietly, and smoothly.

Marion: I hear the baying hounds in the distance from where we took the two deer. (faces Waubash, smiling deviously) Do you know who that big man was?

Waubash: I’ve never seen him before.

Marion: I hope you got a good look at him. That was Robin's old man. You had better look well. He bought the rights to this land, evidently. I only know him from the pictures Robin showed me of him at work. I never was the type to ask questions otherwise.

Waubash: (smiles, calculatingly) Well now, I’m happy I got to meet him, I suppose.

Marion: This was really a most exhilarating experience! I can’t believe all the excitement in your life, man! Where have I been all of my life? It could be more than I could take, and should you ever get caught…? It might just be all the worse for you.

The pickup truck engine starts, reverses, rolls away onto the dirt road

Stage lights gradually dim

Marion, Waubash, Mickey Val,

Exit

 

Act 1

Scene 4

In Buttercup Meadows

The farm house living room

Enter Marion & Robin

Both sit down on the couch, playing cards and taking shots

Marion: (smiling) You’ve got a busy day today, have you not?

Robin: I was born ready, honey, what’s your lame excuse?

Marion: I’m just a man of action, that’s all.

Robin: (huffs) I don’t know about that. (laughs) You might be a man in need of some action.

Marion: Well, that too. (laughs) What else can I say?

Robin: Well, when exactly is this ridged shank supposed to show? I’m a woman with solid plans and a real rowdy kind of life, ya know?

Marion: I’m expecting him any time now.

Robin: Have you got the produce you promised me?

Marion: I sure do.

Robin: How much ya holding?

Marion: Half a lune: blossom line is yours right now.

Robin: Is half a line all you got for me? You promised a full line in divine dust, man! (shakes head, side ways) This darlin’ Can: Can dollyne’er dances for free, baby! Understand?

Marion: You know the rules of the road. It's half a lune blossom line before the show, and the other half upon satisfactory completion, when ya go.

Robin: You’ll have no problems on my part, and I just don’t give a damn about his. If he’s good, bad, or ugly as hell, I simply don’t give a damn. I’m only doing a job for you, honey. Ineed my due pay just the same, and in full, baby, in full!

Marion: You can do that too!

Robin: You shut up to me, you idiot! (half laughs, pretends to slap Marion)

 A heavy knock at the front door

Marion: Come on inside! (laughs)We about know who it is.

Door opens

Enter Waubash

Walks over to the couch, takes a seat

Waubash: Oh yes! Good whiskey, good fiends, fine times!

Robin: Awe hell, I remember this floppy noodle!

Waubash: Who are you calling a floppy noodle?

Robin: (smiles) Well. we’ll soon find out, (nods her head toward Waubash)now won’t we?

Waubash: I want you to be sure and tell all of your rowdy she: friends all about li’le ole me, now.

Robin: Everything you could ever hope to dish out, is all in a night for me. Make me smile and I’ll certainly carry you down for a new mile. I know how to read all of the street codes, honey.

Waubash: You sure know how to lay them words down, right slick and smooth like. I’ll say that much! (gazes around, laughs)

Marion: Look, Waubash and me, killed some nice deer yesterday. Mine was a fat doe and I got several chops from her on our table top grill out on the deck outside. You want a succulent chop, Robin?

Robin: Of course! Why not? (shrugs) I’m always in the mood for some good meat. If I don’t get some before morning time, I’m going to be sorely disappointed. (glares hard at Waubash) Is that not right, Mr?

Marion: What's wrong with your man back at home?

Robin: Nothing at all. Leave him out of this picture!

Marion: (chuckles) We know you to be a true freak, unto he who can keep you tweaked.

Robin: Shut up now, and I mean it! I have my own business, and I get my own kicks, my way.  I don’t know what he does. He works, hunts, catches a buzz, here and there. I don’t munk with him, and he leaves me alone.

Heavy knock on the door

Marion walks over, opens the door

Enter Jimbo & Annie

Jimbo: (smiles, gazes around, both arms spread open, palms up) What have we here? What’s going on, stinky pinky? Which way is the great big dong swingin’ these days? That’s the town clock I’m talking about, now. (gazes around) Shame on all of you!

Annie: (Scottish brogue) It's been a long time! Jimbo told me about some of the happenings and talk around here. I was with him and we both had to drop by.

Marion: Well, have a seat here on the couch. We’re playing cards, taking shots of JD, talking, eating more deer.

Jimbo: You were eating deer the other day when I was here, were ya not?

Marion: Well, this is a different deer. Waubash and me killed her a few nights ago over in the ole haunted plantation woods.

Jimbo: Waubash? (drops his chin on his chest, shakes his head from side to side, chuckles) I should have known, man. Son of a bitch! You need to watch it inside those haunted woods now. You may wind up being the ghost in there if you don’t.

Annie: (Scottish brogue) It's March now. Deer season went out January first, didn’t it?

Waubash: I’m a self-employed man here! What can I say?

Jimbo: I told you about him. He don’t pay all of that about seasons and government rules (laughs) any mind, Annie.

Annie: Well, he had better. The conservation officers are all over around here. And don’t I know you? Your name is…. Please don’t tell me now. (snaps her fingers)

Robin: Yeah, for sure we know one another. Oh yeah, I see you hanging out in the malt deli up town here with.. Oh, what’s her name.. They call her Patty Cake.

Jimbo: Patty Cake! That is the wife of that doctor who slings herself around with the whole county. I don’t want you hanging around with her.

Annie: Oh Jimbo now. (gasps) People claim that, but it's not so. She is still with her old man. She seldom even goes out or anything.

Jimbo: Yeah, yeah! (turns, faces Robin) I know you, Robin. I know your old man, Mickey Val, too.(glares over at Waubash, hangs his head, laughs) He’s the big man who played that bar gig over at the County Line not long ago, then threw the bar manager all the way down the bar when he didn’t pay him for the fourth time. I’ve also seen him drink three fifths of rum at a single sitting, still walk a straight line, and act half sane! (laughs heartily)When he blew the breath analyser at that bar, the damn needle spun completely around the gauge at least three damn times! One round for each fifth!

Robin: Look, my old man is what he is. We’ve actually been legally married for twenty years.

Many find it tough to believe. I mean, you know, man! I ring his bell from time to time.

He rings mine when he feels like it, then we make our way out and ring our own bells. I mean, I love to party and hang out, pure and simple. I’m not gonna make anything of anything, with any damn body. He likes to hunt. On my part, it's good to have the old peach bitten on the south side, every now and again, or be taken completely around the block on a really good midnight joy ride! I’m not punked: up to no damn body nor am I shy about not being so.

Jimbo: I think the only one around here who isn’t getting bitten, let alone giving any good bites, is ole Waubash yonder, (hangs his head, laughs) the midnight deer slayer. Some enterprising woman needs to take him out, kick his tires a bit, and see what kind of joy stick he’s quietly holding up!

Marion: Time reveals all secrets, eh? (laughing, glancing up at Jimbo and Waubash)

Jimbo: Hey! The card game is on, right? How much is the ante?

Marion: It's seventy five dollars right now. Correct me if I’m wrong!

Jimbo: I’ll tell ya what. No problem. (reaches inside his hip pocket, pulls out his wallet, takes outa hundred dollar bill, drops it into the center of the table. Takes a seat in the love seat.

I’m in and who's raising me?

Robin: I’m dropping in! Here.. (drops a bill)

Waubash: She’s put in fifty. Here’s seventy five. (reaches inside his pocket, drops four twenties, a ten, and a five) So now, all of us are up, and let's play cards!

All clasp shoulders and chant along

We line up the glasses

like tiny crystal troops,

each one promising warmth

Amidst grandiose war whoops!

 

Someone yells “cheers!”

like they’re leading a quest,

and suddenly we’re Vikings

doing our very worst best.

 

The first shot goes down

with a confident grin—

the second reminds you

you haven’t eaten since ten.

 

By shot number three

you’re a philosopher king,

explaining life’s meaning

to a whack brain and an overblown

dingaling.

 

Four makes you bold,

five makes you brave,

six has you dancing

Or some soiled dove’s gold laden

slave.

 

But the final shot hits

with a plot twist so wild—

you swear a phantom gal jilted you

and the front door moved out a whole mile!

 

Still, you raise one more,

because why not commit

to the kind of night where you score,

That you’ll remember…

in skits.

 

Act 1

Scene 5

In West Branch

A small farm scene with standing corn, a cabin in the center. A simple living room with a Persian rug in the center. A bagpipe is hanging on the left wall. Couch and love seats are facing the front door.

Enter Jimbo and Annie

Jimbo: (lights up a pipe, eases back on the couch) Times sure are good, Annie. I can’t help but think about damned Waubash and Marion. I swear, I mean, something isn’t quite right with either of the two.

Annie: (Scottish brogue) Waubash is especially off in the head. He doesn’t even look like he’s right. I firmly believe that. He has that look like he’s slack, off in the head.

Jimbo: (blows smoke, laughs) Yeah, he has that look about him, for sure, but don’t let him fool you Annie, that’s one smart son of a bitch! I honestly don’t see how he gets by myself.

Annie: He scavenges fossils in those woods, not to mention hunting deer and trapping valuable furs. I mean, you know those hand sized shark teeth he dug up over on Wahoo Creek that he was showing us a while back? One of those can fetch two hundred dollars in the right place. I mean, (gasps) this man had a whole peck bucket of ‘em! You were telling me that he found dinosaur bones a while back, and was selling them. He probably turned five thousand dollars with one skeleton of those, especially the skull. Figure in shrooms, the ginseng, and loco weed he finds all the time, and this man rakes in a whole damn mint!

(laughs) Still though.., something about him is only half baked at best. Can he live on that? Where exactly does this man live?

Jimbo: He lives on ten acres over on the shoals, by Rainbow Creek, he bought for peanuts from his uncle several years ago, in a cabin he built from scratch with his own hands. He has a pond and a perennial garden. He raises, catches, and scrounges most of what he uses and eats.

Annie: Yeah! In other words, he’s debt free, right?

Jimbo: Exactly! (laughs) What a great place to be, debt free!

Annie: The problem with that is the government doesn’t like it, because payments on debt carry a built in tax. Not to mention everything he’s doing to net in cash is illegal, for crying out loud here! We work because not working is illegal. And what do you think about his friend, Marion?

Jimbo: (puffs a cloud of smoke) I think he’s rather sweet, to speak the truth. Like, a bow wow baby poodle chow chow. Know what I mean, plow boy’s dream?

Annie: (laughs ongoing) What the hell are you saying? (laughs heartily)

Jimbo: He’s got sugar in his tank. I’ll be shocked if that man’s ever been with a real woman before.

Annie: (laughs) You don’t know that. Maybe he has, but simply doesn’t show it. (laughs) How old is he now?

Jimbo: He’s a good forty, I know that. He looks every day of fifty to me.

Annie: (laughs heartily, ongoing) He’s been to a bordello or something like that by now.

You know that! Everybody does regarding all men.

Jimbo: (puffs a cloud of smoke, relaxes backward into his seat) Yeah.., I’d love to see that sissified son of a bitch in a bordello. Wouldn’t you?

Annie: (laughs on going) You are not right yourself.

Sudden knock at the front door

Jimbo rises up from his seat, opens the door

Enter Marion and Waubash

Jimbo: Speak of the devil himself. Look at this, Annie!

Annie: I can’t believe it. How have you been since last weekend?

Marion: I’ve been alright. Staying busy. We both were wondering if you were in a mood for a party. We bought a bottle of JD and a smoke: cured ham.

Jimbo: Where did you get that ham?

Marion: It's some from a wild pig Waubash here, killed and sugar cured.

Jimbo: As long as it's good. That is all we care about.

Waubash: It will be beach time soon. All of us should plan a trip to the beach in the next week or so.

Jimbo: (pauses, glares, smiles deviously) Tell me something man, who is your steady woman?

Marion: I don’t have one, personally. Ask ole Waubash here, that’s the lady’s man!

Jimbo: Oh damn! That’s right! (laughs) How’d it go with ole rocking Robin? I hear she takes in a great big mouth full.

Annie: You can’t mean Robin Val? (laughs, gasps) Her old man is a nut case.

Jimbo: That’s the one! (laughs)

Waubash: That candy was pretty sweet. Or should I say that my candy must have been pretty sweet to her, judging from the way she carried on with me!

Jimbo, Annie, Marion, laugh ongoing

Jimbo: Pass all of us a good round of that whiskey. I am about to die with the laughs here! Sheese!

Marion commences filling glasses with whiskey

Annie: Next turn is ole Marion there! He is the only single person present. We all have to get down and find him a real woman.

Waubash, Annie, Jimbo, laugh heartily

Marion: I don’t know about that. I’m actually content with everything like I am. Sometimes I think it might be OK, but I just don’t know. I take ‘em as I find ‘em. The last thing I want to do is waste precious time and money, making one into something none of ‘em already are. She is either an upgrade when I find her, or she never will be. I have yet to find that, personally. So in the meantime I’ll rent one or two, here and there, and get the best use out of 'em; then turn all of ‘em loose, rather than me mortgaging any one out.

Jimbo: Well, once you get sunk: in right, you’ll click: on then. I can see it written in lights and smoke, high up in the sky already. My mother always did say, bless her dearly departed soul; a wick dip: soaked into the right kind of liquid, always makes an old dull  candle burn delightfully inside the right kind of tin lid.

Annie: (dropping multiple shots, laughing almost uncontrollably) You are crazy as hell, Jim. Shut up! Don't say any more!

Stage lights gradually dim

Marion, Waubash, Jimbo, Annie exit

Curtain drops

 

Act 2

Scene 1

In Buttercup Meadows

The wood framed farmhouse living room

Enter Marion

Sitting on the couch, dialing the black landline telephone, with the receiver up to his right ear.

Marion: (a puppyish voice) Hey Waubash! It's Friday all over again. We had a blast last month over at Jimbo’s place, deer hunting, hanging out, and everything, didn’t we, man?

Waubash: We lived life, that’s for sure! I had good thrills and many horizontal adventures with ole rockin’ Robin. I was shocked at how unhesitant and uninhibited she was about everything. It had been a long time for me, too damn long to speak the truth; but I am a man of the woods, rather than the lover’s ballroom

Marion: (laughs) I told you, man. You thought I was lying, didn’t you?

Waubash: I wouldn’t say I thought you were lying. I went at it with a blank mind and a clean slate. I was gonna take it however it was, you know?

Marion: (laughs) What do you have planned for today?

Waubash: Well, about nine, soon coming this morning, I have a farmer’s beaver problem I must address. All I’m gonna do is put in a few traps and rebreak the dam. I have a chicken farmer who has a predator problem he wants me to address for him. None of this will take long, and my day will be free after that.

Marion: Do you think you’ll be finished by twelve, man?

Waubash: Twelve, maybe twelve thirty.

Marion: Swing on by the house. I don’t have any plans. I am thinking about riding out into town later on, maybe.

Waubash: I can do that.

Marion: Have you thought about getting back up with Robin anymore?

Waubash: The thought has crossed my mind a time or three. I swear, that woman has a body that will stop a freight train! I simply can’t remove that thought from my mind, somehow.

Marion: What you need to hold in mind is her old man. He’s a devious one. Once he senses a threat, he moves to neutralize it. All he needs is an anticipation of possibility, that’s it!

He pulled seven years in the Marine Corp, I think, back when the US MC were real men among real men, you know?

Waubash: Oh? I’m not worried about anything like that. People messing with me don't over concern me. I almost never have those kinds of problems.

Marion: Well, I told ya, man. You are not dealing with the average person in him. You are going into that with your eyes wide open.

Waubash: Yeah, I agree. The same was true with his old lady. I went into that with my eyes wide open.

Marion: (laughs hysterically) You are not right, but it really is serious business.

Waubash: I’d love to have just one more all night roll: in: the: hay with her, then I’m going to leave her be for good. The new will be about worn off from her goods, for me,  by then. I will need a band new set O’ chops to fit down snugly o’er the standing rock. Get the picture, ole maude?

Marion: (laughs) Maybe I can show you where she lives when you come over later on.

Waubash: See you in time, then.

Marion: Until next time, chau: chau now.

Places the telephone receiver back onto the hanger. Mills around inside the living room, sweeping, wiping furniture, washing dishes, preparing coffee, fresh cuts of ham and cheese into sandwiches. Glances up on the wall after some time. The large clock shows 1300.

Heavy knock at the front door

Marion walks over to answer

Enter Waubash

Waubash: What’s on, cat daddy? (glances around) Everything sure smells good in this ole house.

Marion: What does it smell like, man?

Waubash: A mixture of roses and smoked ham, with a touch of cinnamon, fresh coffee, chives, and apples.

Marion: Well, I’ve been working since I spoke with you last.

Waubash: Working? Did you teach or something?

Marion: No, I had today off.

Waubash: Damn! I didn’t know there was a holiday of any kind today.

Marion: (laughs) Well, only school and government people probably would. The holiday is the International Sword Swallowers Day. Actually, I heard it was a covert political celebration of some sort, where they wave some kind of a flag, or something like that. Anyway, teachers get the day off, with pay, and I could care less.

Waubash: Damn! I’ve never heard of such a thing, man.

Marion: They are having a display and a parade up town, I hear. (chuckles)Some rather infamous women around here will be genuine stars of the show, with the sword swallowing, and all. (chuckles)

Waubash: Awe yeah, man? (astonished, gasp) Will we know any of ‘em?

Marion: Hellen and Robin will be front line performers!

Waubash: Naw! But honestly, I can see Robin doing that easily, and very smoothly.

Marion: (laughs) Top prize is one thousand dollars, with free tickets to the gator wrestling show and the Pig Jiggin’ festival next Saturday and Sunday, for themselves and their families.

Waubash: That’s interesting, and I must say rat dumb interesting at that.

Marion: They will be wearing string bikini bathing suits while they do this sword swallowing act.

Waubash: (jaw drops, gasps) Wow! I will be utterly stunned and numbed, personally.

Marion: Pictures of the first place winner will be featured in Swim Suit magazine. All kinds of opportunities will fall down from that. Women who are featured in that magazine often net million dollar contracts to pose in Playboy, Cosmopolitan, and more. It could be a one-time opportunity of a lifetime for many, including Hellen and Robin.

Waubash: I will melt right where I stand, if I was to see that show.

Marion (laughs) Well, we’ll motor out in a bit! (laughs)

Waubash: Yeah! (wide eyed, jaw dropped)

Marion: Look, come on over here to the couch, have a seat, grab a sandwich from the platter on the table, and relax back! I will pour us both a mug of some fine black coffee, and we both shall be good to go for the whole day.

Waubash walks from the foyer, to the couch, takes a seat, grabs a sandwich from the platter. Marion walks over to the stove, grabs the stainless steel coffee pot from the stove top, walks back over toward the couch and pour the coffee into the two mugs. Once filled, both men hold their mugs high. (smiles)

Waubash: To lives well: lived!

Marion: To the thrills of living, and new adventure!

Both men: Salute!

 

Act 2

Scene 2

Main street in Cypress Veil

Oak trees align either side. The dogwoods and tulips are blooming. The national flag flies near the barber pole sign. Small band marches playing Entry of the Gladiators. Four women carrying narrow sheathed swords march along in string bikinis at the fore.

Enter Waubash and Marion wearing faded jeans and denim overalls

Waubash: You were not lying. There she is! (gasps, nods) In her best debauched glory. Son! I think I’ll fall over and just die right here. Look at that body, will you.. (gasps).

Marion: See the auburn headed one to her right? That’s Helen. She’ll make a man lick his chops as well.

Waubash: Do you know the other two? I’ve never seen either of ‘em before.

Marion: I work with both women. The blond one on the left behind Robinis named Hera.

Waubash: She is taller than the average woman, and bears an expression as if she is in complete control of everything around here.

Marion: She is intelligent. She does her job well. I can say that much for her.

Waubash: What’s her job?

Marion: She works in administration and is the event organizer. She is highly dedicated to the job and the cause.

Waubash: I want to hook up with her.

Marion: You think you do. She’s very demanding. Most men feel intimidated, and she can care less, to be honest.

Waubash: I suppose you haven't tried, man.

Marion: Like I said, I could care less. I prefer peace over hardline direction in my life.

Waubash: Tell me about the dark headed, gracefully moving one beside her on the right there.

Marion: Her name is Nixie. We call her Nicks for short. She’s an art teacher. She loves a gothic scene. Her whole classroom seems gothic in its design and arrangement. She has a daughter named Apate, that is an outright breath taker and classy as all get out. I’ve spoken with her daughter on a few occasions at the school where I work. Nixie’s last name is something like Perdidta. She says it's her maiden name. Interesting, to say the least.

Waubash: She looks good as a ten point buck, and that’s really good from my perspective. How old is her daughter?

Marion: Her daughter is twenty or maybe a year less.

Waubash: Do you know any more women around here participating in this ceremony?

Marion: I spy one in the band I met not long ago. The conductor there. I didn’t connect up or anything, but I spoke with her. She seems intelligent enough, I guess.

Waubash: Who is she?

Marion: She has a strange enough name. She often hangs with the others I mentioned earlier on.

Her name is Mora Ananke. She’s from somewhere way out of town. I think about all of these women we’ve been talking about are from somewhere way away, like I am.

Waubash: What does she do?

Marion: She is a school scheduler somewhere in this county. People say she’s received all kinds of top performance awards.

Waubash: That woman has a somewhat unique appearance. She is calm as a body on ice, and seems very secure in her air of confidence. She wears a knee length skirt, deep blue in color bands. Her shirt seems to be an off white, if not silver color. I can see her bronze colored earrings from here.

Marion: Yeah, her bronze Celtic spiral earrings really show up against her long, perfectly straight, jet black hair. She is somewhat of a unique personality as well, I must say.

Band suddenly pauses, music ceases. An announcer's (any attendant) voice booms on a microphone from somewhere.

Announcer: Step right up! Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, thrill‑seekers of all ages! Prepare your eyes and steady your nerves, because you are moments away from witnessing a feat so daring, so astonishing, so downright unbelievable that it defies every instinct of the human body!

Behold, our fearless performers, (the four women in bikinis bow) ready to send a gleaming steel blade straight past the point of no return! No tricks, no illusions — just pure, jaw‑dropping skill.

The one to the far left at the fore is none other than Hellen McKellen!

Hellen: (bows)

Onlookers: (clap)

Announcer: The wonderful lady to her right is none other than Mrs Robin Val! Let's give it up for her now!

Robin: (waves, bows)

Onlookers: (energetically clap)

Announcer: The one directly behind Hellen is none other than Mrs Hera Berry!

Hera: (waves, bows)

Onlookers: (clap)

Announcer: Finally, in our motley gathering, we have Miss Nixie Nicks!

Onlookers: (clap, cheer)

Announcer: All right, hang on to your hearts and your breath, because this magnificent show is about to commence!

The four ladies in bikinis carry long thin swords in sheaths on their sides. They remove these, lean their heads backwards, ease these blades inside, and gradually on father down.

Marion: Now isn’t that such a beautiful sight, Waubash?

Wabash: Wow! (gasps) my blood just runs ice cold! Somehow I feel like a weighted ball bat might suddenly slap me right in the face!

Mickey Val: (from somewhere out in the crowd) Git it Robin, git it gal! You’ll win this contest. I can feel it! Show ‘em all what you’ve got and exactly how it's done!

Waubash: Somehow I can feel it too. What about you?

Marion: Yeah, without a doubt, man. (sighs) I’ll tell you what man. I enjoy this, but let's ride around some. We can come back here later on to see how all of this ends. It's all about to soon be over with, anyway. I want to beat this traffic out. I would love to talk a bit with these women, but honestly, I don’t think it would be a wise move, on either of our parts. I’m not really anxious to pair up with any of these women anyway. I’m bored with bawdy women, myself. I honestly wish I could find a real woman, for a change. I don’t admit it, but I really do.

Waubash: Sure, no problem with me, man. Let's roll on! Like that old slow rock song, Ride On!

Stage lights gradually fade.

Stage lights gradually brighten

The two enter Marion's Impala. They ride around town. for some time.

Marion: There is not much going on other than that festival. If we were hungry we could pull into one of these greasy spoon diners around here.

Waubash: I know where we can go, man. You mentioned a good woman. I have a long term associate who lives on the edge of town here. I’ve been friends with her since high school. I visit her from time to time. Her name is Raziella Media.

Marion: Wow, sounds exotic. Where is she from?

Waubash: I’m not sure. Way over on the coast somewhere. They have different origins somehow. She once told me her people were from around the Caspian sea, I think it was she said. Well, she is different, sort of. She lives right down here not far away. Turn this way, to the left.

Stage lights gradually fade

Stage lights gradually brighten

The car pulls into a quaint apartment complex driveway, stops.

Marion: This place seems kind of somber and melancholy. There is, like a hazy mist over the whole area, man.

Waubash: There it is, (points) room one thirteen. That’s her place. You will enjoy this time we are about to spend, I think. It will be kind of different, to say the least.

The car pulls up before a plain apartment door with only the number 113 on the door. Marion and Waubash exit the car, then pause before the door. Waubash knocks three times. No answer. He knocks three more times. A snap is heard, and a latch slides. Door opens.

A slightly melancholy, trim, yet subtly confident woman stands there, hugging the left wall, in a plain but pricey Laura Ashley white cotton maxi, gold trim, ankle length dress. A thin thread of pearls gracefully embraces her pale throat. Her hair is shoulder length, coal black straight. Her earrings are golden, symbolic geometric figures. Her complexion is fish: belly pallid. Her eyes are piercing ice blue. Her lips are red as freshly spilled blood. Her exuding scent is one of pink roses.

Enter Raziella

Raziella: (smiles thoughtfully) Oh! (gasp) You are back again, I see. What brings you around so?

Waubash: Yeah? (shrugs) It's me again! I was out ‘n about. Just wanting to say hello, I suppose.

Raziella : (smiles) Who is your friend there?

Waubash: His name is Marion. He teaches history at Iris Glade Elementary School. I told you about him not long ago, remember?

Raziella: Oh? (hesitates, suddenly smiles) Well come on inside then. We will (pause) just make room, I guess! (laughs)

Stage lights gradually fade

Stage lights gradually brighten

A living room scene, gas fireplace, nature portraits on either side, leather couch, love seats, vanilla scent fills the room.

Marion, Waubash, Raziella, walk over and take a seat on the couch.

Raziella: Well, now! (sigh) They have this thing going on uptown now. (shrugs) Why are you two not there?

Waubash: We were, but we thought we’d drop by to visit you. Why should we not?

Raziella: Well, (gasps) why, on earth? What’s it? (laughs) Why here? What, pray tell, have I?

Waubash: How does it go down in the ole rodeo show, lady? (laughs)

Raziella: (gasps, pretends to laugh) Ok, I guess. (shrugs) Nothing that great going on hereabouts, though. Only life and dealing with real life. That’s all! (snickers, shrugs)

Waubash: (shrugs) Hell, we all do that. How are you getting your kicks these days?

Raziella: (gasps, pretends to laugh) Well, and so it all is. (gasps) I mean, you jerk around out on your uncle's land that he gave you, and here, we have no choice but to work at least a half: job and pay rent.

Waubash: Wait a minute now! Nobody gave me anything. I paid for that land, mind you. It was a good deal, but I worked like a mule and paid for it, understand?

Raziella: (gasps, pretends to laugh) You didn’t do anything! (gasps, sneers)Your mama gave you everything, including the money to buy that land. Everybody knows that, all around here. Don't try to lie your way around it like that! (laughs, gazes around, sighs)

Waubash: I wish! How much I wish that was so. I work the construction shutdowns. It's always balls to the wall on those jobs, and fourteen hours a day, six days a week at that! If I didn’t exalt and regale in the travel I do, and seek out the good, party life in it, the real hell of it all would most certainly drag me down. I’m simply not going to allow that to happen. We were not dirt poor, pray tell, but I didn't have a silver spoon shoved up my posterior end either.

Raziella: So, keep on talkin’ boy, (gasps, half laughs) and keep your rude manners and foul language to yourself. My mother would have already ran you far away from here.

Waubash: So where is your dear, pleasant little Mumzie today?

Raziella: She’s at work, of course. Nobody else in the real world has time to play and carry on all day, like you do. Most have two jobs, work to do around the house, groceries to buy, tax to pay, car payments, etcetera.

Waubash: Why, damn it man! (gasps, faces Marion) What do you think about all of this, man? (turns, faces Raziella, shrugs) Hell! Marion here has time to howl at the moon with the likes of me, woman! So what’s wrong with you, pray tell?

Marion: (laughs) I don’t know what to think about this, man. I teach school. I work like a mule myself, yet I have my own life time too.

Waubash: (sighs) I dropped by to see this woman, and just look at the things she says to me, and how she treats me. (smiles, chuckles) Can you believe this, man? Maybe we had better leave, eh? I can go deer hunting or hang around the mill pond out on that big race tile, chewing fresh homemade plug; instead of being here, getting berated like I am.

Raziella: (to Waubash) We are hardworking, Christian people in this house here. Nobody has the time nor the inclination to riffraff. If you would actually hold down a steady job, then maybe you could accomplish something good with your life one day, and stop living the way you do. Otherwise you are doomed to a life of dismal turn: ups, if something all: out worse doesn’t happen.

Marion: (responding to Waubash) Yeah? (laughs) I guess, man. I’m ready to roll on. Maybe everybody will be in a better mood later on, right?

Waubash: (sighs) Let's go, man.

Both men arise. Walk toward the door.

Waubash: Well, it was nice seeing you around again. We will drop by at another time.

Marion: (smiles, nods) Nice meeting you today.

Raziella: (smiles, blinks toward Marion) Look, I’m happy we’ve actually met today. Waubash has told me much about you in the past. He drops by periodically, always unannounced (toward Waubash, sneers). I’ve known him since our senior year of high school. What’s it been now? Six years? (shrugs) Seven maybe? Maybe we shall meet again in better standing, eh? My apologies.

Marion: Yes, in the bye and bye. Until next time, my fair lady.

The two men open the door, step outside

Stage lights gradually dim

Marion, Waubash, Raziella exit

 

Act 2

Scene 3

In Buttercup Meadows

A few months later

The wood: framed farmhouse living room

Enter Marion

 Coffee pot going, cooking, washing dishes, reading the newspaper, lounging around on the couch

Heavy knock on the front door

Marion arises, opens the front door

Enter Waubash

Waubash: What's happening, man? I’m back off the road and thought I’d visit. Meat is salted down now and hanging. My old fish pond has been stocked and I started raising pigeons in a shack I built on my place a few months ago. Between this and my artificial den sets, I shouldn’t have to hunt for meat much anymore.

Marion: (a puppy like voice) Well that’s all good. I’ll just buy mine at the grocery store, myself. Where did you go away to on that construction job?

Waubash: They sent me to Atlanta, then Nashville, Tennessee. It was fun. I made loads of side cash selling piss on that job to people who needed to beat the drug test.

Marion: (laughs) How much were you getting?

Waubash: Twenty dollars a drop! Twenty a bottle drop, man, nothing more, nothing less, takes this much to pass their test!

Marion: How often did you drop?

Waubash: Seven times a day on average.

Marion: How did you do it, man? (laughs) I couldn’t piss that much if they held a gun to my head!

Waubash: Drinking maybe a gallon of water a day, at least. Maybe a pot full of heavy black coffee in the morning.

Marion: You’re crazy, man! (laughs)The only problem is you’ve got some dope: head working over you on a high beam somewhere way up. He could carelessly drop something, and that would be the end of you.

Waubash: Yeah? True.. I thought about that, but the easy cash money was way too tempting. (laughs) You know how it is with me, man!

Marion: (laughs) You are not right. You may be the most off: plumb person I’ve ever met. (laughs)

Waubash: Why? (laughs, shrugs) Do you need to meet a more off: plumb person, or something?

Marion: I don’t think so, man. (laughs, hangs head, shakes it) I don’t think I need a more whacked: out person to associate with!

The two walk over to the couch, and sit

Waubash: So tell me, man. What's it with you since I’ve been gone for what, four months now?

Marion: Not too much. I’m just working like a dog, doing what I do. My weekends are about like you see here. I’ll mill around here at the house, might have a shot of JD hither and thither, listen to Stevie Ray Von some, (shrugs) like I do, maybe motor downtown if something worth looking at is going on. The Irish Pub over by the Drummer's Square is an OK place to spend a Friday evening, I suppose.

Waubash: (shrugs) Nothing wrong with that, man!

Marion: Well honestly? I needed to speak with you about something, man. You dropped by here at the perfect time for me to break everything over to you..

Waubash: Lay it on out, then, thick or thin. (laughs)I’m all ears. I’ve heard it all, but don’t tell me! You caught the funky mambo from one of these dirty hog: waller, dame dollies around here..

Marion: (laughs) No, nothing like that!

Waubash: No? Naw! No! I got it. Yes, I got it now! (smiles, right index finger up, shaking) You’re soon to be a Pap!

Marion: (laughs) No, nothing like that, man. Nothing at all like that.

Waubash: So what on earth is it? Be out with it, fellow. Come on!

Marion: Well, awe, uh.. (pause) Do you mind me seeing Raziella?

Waubash: (astonished, laughs, gasps) Hey! We were only long: time associates, mind you. There was nothing between us, and never ever has been, man. Many people will say there is, but there isn’t. Ask her about it! She’ll tell you so. What you and her stir up, is between you and her!

Marion: After we visited her the other day, I simply could not shake that woman off my mind. I mean, that alluring face, the way she moves about, the enticing personality in general, I saw in her. I couldn’t shake that away, man! It's just that simple. So I dropped back by to visit her not long after you and I did.

Waubash: Oh? Ok, so? (shrugs) What then?

Marion: Well, I started visiting her the following weekend. Then it was every weekend. Then it turns into every evening.

Waubash: Damn it, son! That honey must have been good, eh? What’s it been now? Four months? Long time, fellow, such a long time!

Marion: Well, things between us got deep. I mean really deep in, man, deeper than your cedar picket fence post shoved down into the red clay and white sand.

Waubash: Ok, (shrugs, gasp) so they will, man. You mean, like good and hung: in, deeply. I understand! Oh, (sighs) how much I do! That much is only a normal part of a man’s life. So what about it?

Marion: But you are not getting it.. (smiles, sighs) We’re engaged! Have been for a whole month and a half already, now.

Waubash: (astonished, gasps, places right hand over his heart) My gosh! I didn’t hear what I thought I did, did I? Did you really say you were getting married to her?

Marion: (a serious, love stricken puppy like voice) Yes, I did. I really did say that.

Waubash: My good Lord! (gasps, flabbergasted) Oh my good Lord! I simply can’t believe what I am hearing. I’m telling you straight up, man. The honey might be good, man, that much I truly do understand, but not good enough to buy the whole damn bee hive! You hear me in what I’m saying to you?

Marion: (laughs, gasps) What now? What’s your word, in this intimation of mine that you’ve just heard?

Waubash: (laughs slightly) It’s like this man. I seriously hope you know how to tend bees.

Marion: (pauses, slightly agitated puppy like voice) What on earth are you talking about? Come out and say it!

Marion: Or should I say, beware of that bee hive being taken over by hornets. Such a thing happens from time to time now.

Marion: Still! Be out with it. What exactly are you saying, man?

Waubash: (shrugs) Nothing.. Nothing at all. Bravo! (claps) Cheerie: O, man! I truly do wish you well, man. I’m utterly astonished, to say the least, but I wish you ‘uns well just the same. When is the marriage ceremony?

Marion: Next weekend, noon Saturday.

Waubash: (gasp) Next weekend! (quickly covers mouth with right hand, gasps) I simply can’t believe this. Nobody will! Wait until I tell crazy Jimbo about this. (Laughs) I about know what Jimbo will say. I can see it now, already.

Marion: That’s right! I’m telling you, I’ll be a married man next weekend.

Waubash: Where will this wedding take place?

Marion: At Stately Oaks Plantation. The flower gardens will be beautiful. We’ve already been there and walked this place out, from end to end.

Waubash: Stately Oaks Plantation! Son, you had better be swingin’ a golden rock: hard twenty four, if you do a wedding there.

Marion: (smiles, gazes off into space) We got it, man. We laid it down already.

Waubash: Beau! (gasps) I heard a simple basic wedding in that place is more than ten grand, and that is only for use of the big house and the grounds. Decorations and accommodation are much more, and must be done through the plantation management’s own event planners and catering companies. I mean, the plantation owns the entire wedding process!

Marion: (gazing into space, drones) It's done. It's all accounted for and over with. All inclusive everything is taken care of already.. Except there will not be any alcohol. My little angelic princess refuses to give accommodation to such barbaric activity, as she labels the act of imbibing.

Waubash: What do you mean, it's done? Twenty thousand dollars only gets a person started in that place! It's for the politically connected, rich, and locally famous alone, to have weddings in that place, man. State senator’s sons and daughters do such things. Several movie stars have. I mean, it's these kinds of people who get married in places like that, not us real people, who scratch around down in the dirt and dung with the chickens.

Marion: (gazing ahead into space, drones) The full amount has already been dropped. (slowly turns, facing Waubash) My dear angel will have exactly what she wants, when she wants it, the way she wants it, and absolutely nothing less.

Waubash: But– unless one has such a grandiose golden wad laying down, this means he goes into debt! I mean, man, (gasp) I’ve heard most people who do weddings in that place spend fifty thousand dollars trying to be cheap about it, for heaven’s sake here! Go to the friggin’ courthouse, for crying out loud. Don’t spend yourself into poverty. I hate to see that. Don’t you understand my position in this? We’ve known one another for a while now.

Marion: (gazing into space, drones) My little angelic princess wants it. (turns, facing Waubash) What e’er my little angelic princess desires, she’ll most certainly get.

Waubash: (glares hard) My gosh, man! (shakes head) I can’t believe it. I simply can’t believe this reality I’m hearing and seeing sitting before me (gasps)! What in the damn hell has she done to you? What has that woman done to you? I heard she was into grove: chanting, black magic, crystal gazing, and all of that funky stuff. A female friend of hers I know relatively well, claims she was a certified druidic priestess.

(stands up, glares hard directly at Marion)Was it all that good, man? Hell, I thought you were The Man around here, son! I thought you were a: jiggin’ one for fun, and five more on the sly! Then still ringing the bell of a slobberin’ jowled trollop for the sheer fun of it!

I mean, man! (gasp) That women really must be into the dark arts. I fully believe that now! I mean, she seems inviting and very pleasant on the surface like the Wahoo River, is extremely intelligent so I must speak to her good credit, loves literature and art, as I secretly always have. That was why I ever associated with her in the first place. She really can be half a good friend, to be blunt about it. But me, stirrin’ coals with her? Naw, never! The Wahoo is a rushing torrent beneath the surface. That reality is why nothing between us ever crossed any lines, man. I have no problems finding another to accommodate me along those kinds of lines. Frankly, though, I’m alone and happy just as I am.

But, (right index finger raised, shaking) such a reality here, sitting before me, (left hand extends to point) is more whacked out than any kind of fiction! I can clearly see it all materialize inside the hazy cloud before me.

You are twelve years older than her, man! You should be in absolute control! A real cock: a: doodle: doo can run the whole hen’s roost, son! By now you should be trimmed out enough that you can sling: shaft all: night: long, still walk a solid straight line, hold your head back, shake your sickles, pat your damn leather and step in perfect time, without any kind O’ noticeable stagger! But here you are (holds right hand out) and what exactly on the good Lord’s green earth, pray tale, (left hand over the heart) do we have sitting up here before us real men?

Marion: (sits on the couch, gazing deeply into space, turns, facing Waubash with a blank face, droning in a puppyish voice) My little angelic princess demands to own paradise, and I’m going to sit her up tall in the very queen’s throne itself, and nothing less will ever do.

Stage lights gradually fade

Marion, Waubash, exit

Act 2

Scene 4

Stately Oaks Plantation

Friday at noon a week later

An organ in the back room playing Fur Elise, Mozart & Beethoven. Well-dressed people milling about, sipping hot oolong tea, sparkling spirit: free wine, peach and grape cider. In one branch of the back: room service areas the groom prepares. The bride prepares in the other.

In the front parlor by the foyer

Enter Marion, Event Planer

Marion: How is the organizational flow thus far?

Event Planner (attendant): All is well at our present point. Any particular reason for asking?

Marion: My soon to be wife wants to know.

Event Planner: I will inform you that she has made some rather unusual requests, might I say.

Marion: Like what, if I may ask?

Event Planner: Phalaenopsis Orchids and David Austin Garden Roses throughout the foyer.

Marion: So it is.

Event Planner: She also requested a huge stand of Sarah Bernhardt Peonyin every corner throughout the main area of the house here.

Marion: How much is my bump with these additions?

Event Planner: Nine thousand dollars, sir. (turns, facing Marion, smiles) ‘Tis such a small price for the quality one receives, from a one of a kind service provider such as Stately Oaks Willow and Lace Wedding Services. We possess world: wide ratings, as I know you already understand.

Marion: The request is granted in full, on my part, of course.

Event Planner: (clears throat) Sir, there is more.

Marion: Spill it out, please.

Event Planner: The lady has requested genuine silk taffeta brocade for the window panels and chair sashes.

Marion: I can well comprehend the necessity.

Event planner: One final consideration here, sir..

Marion: Yes, go ahead, if I may say..

Event Planner: Your future wife has ardently requested a fairy princess wedding motif, complete with the wisteria tunnels, flower covered arches, pedal draped chairs, oversized blooms for the cherished story book sensation, twinkle lights in the trees, branch canopies overhead, soft golden up lighting, roman era lanterns and gothic styled candles, a long dramatic aisle runner, crystal chandeliers, champagne draping when all other mentioned reach a limit, light fog for a dreamy entrance, string quartet music, all complete with scented florals for a magical tinker belle atmosphere. This comes complete with full costume regale’. Nothing more, nothing less. With your concerns always held in mind first, sir, we attempted to dissuade her, but she was blatantly insistent, I am so obligated to curtly inform you, sir.

Marion: (Clears his throat) And how much plug in total, if I may ask, will I bite off in: that grant?

Event Planner: No less than fifty one thousand dollars, sir.

Marion: If I add that to the twenty I already have tied up in this, it comes up to seventy one thousand dollars. I’ll call my bank ASAP, and free the limitations from my Black Centurion credit card. It's a given already, only a motion I must follow through on, prior to making any charge exceeding ten thousand dollars.

Event Planner: (hard, expressionless face) The price absolutely must be payable in full by midnight tonight, sir. May you back that up with collateral, sir? Your wife suggested your home, eagerly signing off on it already. Once you back her signature with your soon to receive unlimited card, everyone involved should be anxious to provide all due service to your special cause.

Marion: (nods) I must politely excuse myself and make a telephone call promptly. Once I give the word, commence the setup immediately

Steps around the corner

Marion & the event planner exit

*****

Stage lights gradually fade

Stage lights gradually brighten

 

The following Saturday at eleven

Stately Oaks Plantation

The left rear service quarters

 

Enter Marion

Stands before a mirror stretching his collar, adjusting his tie, combing his hair. Soft chamber room orchestra music plays.

Marion: (muttering) Such a situation, such a condition. Is this one unique? Is it common? How might I make it all work? Will it balance out? Is my decision right or is it wrong? Tell me the truth, oh spirits of the future! Give me long sought out direction in my choices. What sign: where, says what? Might I inquire of that ancient spirit who knows more than I, in what he has forgot? If only I could see into a crystal ball.

Enter Selena

Walks past Marion while he stands before the mirror. pauses

Selena: Having trouble, are you good sir?

Marion: Oh, no, no! I’m like this from time to time. My humble apologies, dear lady.

Selena: I detect your nervousness, and your insecurity. I am talented in making trivial notices, foretelling later grandiose manifestations.

Marion: Nonsense, I’m fine (smiles). If I wasn’t I would surely tell you so.

Selena: Giving troubled folk relief is what I am best at doing.

Marion: I humbly appreciate the genuine concern. I have little time to burn.

Selena: I was sent to offer relief.

Marion: Sent by who? Who are you?

Selena: None other than divine providence, of course. I am none other than La Salvidora, Selena, herself.

Marion: What do you mean?

Selena: At heart, you are a good person. For that reason a certain amount of relief shall be granted unto you via the graces of Divine Provincia.

Marion: I do not understand what you are saying. Be direct with me, lady, I haven’t the spare time.

Selena: What would you most love to change right now, at this very moment?

Marion: This tension and this expense is killing me. I don’t like to admit to that. I wish this ceremony would commence already. I wish I didn’t need to hire an officiant to do this wedding. I wish I could somehow work well with what I already have.

Selena: Hear the sudden change in music? (gasp, points toward the outside) I believe it's the song, Coming Through the Rye. That’s your que. Take your place now in the center of the foyer outside. The officiate will be an AI generated voice, if my senses now serve me right.

Marion: It's not quite time yet. The clock says eleven. I just glanced over.

Selena: (sharp low voice) No time for questions! Correction, the hour is noon. Take your place now, Marion.

Marion, Selena exit

Stage lights gradually darken

Clair de Lune plays in the background

Stage lights gradually brighten

At the foyer center

Enter Marion facing the fore

Pause, music, Here Comes the Bride, plays.

Enter Raziella

Raziella marches down the aisle from the front door wearing a snow white Bliaut dress, ballet style slippers. Pauses beside Marion, music pauses.

AI generated voice (attendant): Do you, Marion Gullivane, take this woman, Raziella Medea, to be your lawful married wife, to have and to hold from this day forward? For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God’s divine ordinance?

Marion: I do.

AI generated voice: Do you, Raziella Medea, take this man, Marion Gullivane, to be your lawful married husband, to have and to hold from this day forward? For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God’s divine ordinance?

Raziella Medea: I do.

Enter Selena

Selena brings the ring on a silk pillow, pausing to stand in the center of the foyer

AI generated voice: With this ring I thee wed. (Selena hands Marion the ring, who places it on Raziella's left ring finger)With my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow. In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

The couple stand before the gathered attendants, hold hands, bow

AI generated voice: Ladies and gentlemen, I now pronounce the union of Mr and Mrs Marion Gullivane! (attendants clap, cheer) Marion, you may now kiss the bride.

Marion & Raziella kiss, attendants clap, cheer

Stage lights gradually dim

Marion, Raziella , Selena, attendants, exit

Curtains fall

 

Act 3

Scene 1

In Buttercup Meadows

The wood framed cabin living room scene

Enter Marion, Raziella,

Cleaning, washing dishes, sweeping the floor, making the bed, sweeping the outside porch

Raziella is lounging around on the couch reading a magazine called The Vale Arcana, on magic potion and druidism.

Raziella: Marion, you get to work and quit slouching around like you do! You behave like you are still single and living with your mom, or something. I’m not you bloody mom, for crying out loud around here! I mean, clean that nasty stove up! Take the trash out, and get all of that stuff off of the dining room table top there!

Marion: (puppyish voice) Why? What’s the rush? Who must I suddenly impress just because I got married?

Raziella: We may have some very important people dropping by at any time. We must mind the eyes of others, and our manners.

Marion: Who, for crying out loud, is coming around here? I’m not expecting anybody. It’s Saturday, and I’ve worked all week long. It's play time now!

Raziella: Play time? Look at me! (pointing at her own face, speaking in a harsh voice) I have an entire realm to rule. I have ambassadors from adjacent realms, who may drop by at any time. We have important people to entertain. You need to dress up. Stop wearing those filthy jeans and half ripped tee shirts, and put on at least that JC Pennies suit and tie you have. Even though I think that is almost as disgusting, and totally unfit for people like us, who are entertaining dignitaries. Next week you’ll find yourself a genuine Tom Ford. I demand it, and our caliber of guests fully deserve this type of respect, and nothing less.

Marion: You, a ruler of a realm? Ha! (laughs) What realm are you ruler of? Tell me all about it (sits down beside her, hugs, attempts to kiss her) This tall tale is one I’m certainly not familiar with!

Raziella: Stop it! (pushes him away) Get off of me! Get up off your pathetic can now and get back to work, in and around this house! (clenches teeth)Do it now, Marion! We have no time for this type of vain foolishness!

Marion: Ok, sure, ok. I’ll go back to work, but I wanna know what the hell kind of realm you are ruling over! (laughs) I had more female attention before I ever got married, than I have since I did. My honest concerns are along those lines, personally!

Raziella: Shut up! Stop laughing at me! Stop putting your disgusting hands on me and get back to work! I rule Tulip Thaloria, by Lasandra Waters! We have important people who’ll be showing up here at any time. We must look like dignitaries, walk like dignitaries, talk like dignitaries. We both must be trim and perfectly fit at all times, for every occasion, no matter what the cost! Our home estate must be an important gathering place, always and forever welcoming to these kinds of important people.

Marion: Oh, please now! (gasps, laughs) Is that why you always dress in those expensive long dresses like you do? Why don’t you put on a set of tight fitting jeans and a raggedy tee shirt, and hang out downtown with me today. It's spring time! They’re having a festival today. I think it's the Moonshiner’s Festival, or something like that.

Raziella: That’s such a barbaric custom, sitting around getting drunk! The foolishness must cease immediately, I tell you!

Marion: Take that dress off, get them jeans and that hail: Texas tee shirt on, and let's go, baby cowgirl ! It's spring time again, for crying out loud here!

Raziella: Shut up! We have no time here for such ridiculousness! We have important people coming over, and we must offer nothing less than the very best! These people deserve it, I can assure you.

A sudden heavy knock at the door

Raziella: Here they are! Here they are! I told you so! I told you so!

Marion walks over to answer the door, opens it

Enter Waubash, Jimbo

Jimbo: (wearing jeans and a white tee shirt, bravado walk) What’s up, doc? I heard you just up, and married yourself off! (smiles, laughs) I feel for you, but my old lady is hip, I must say, most of the time.

Marion: Sort of, I guess. (hangs his head, puppyish voice) Am I married? I felt more like I was back when I was single, to speak the truth.

Jimbo: How are you liking married life?

Marion: (laughs) I’m not sure, but it's alright, I suppose. Come on inside.

Marion, Jimbo, Waubash, walk toward the couch, and sit down

Jimbo: (smiles) You should be getting plenty of snoot these days, at least. Where is she at? I want to meet this woman I’ve heard so much about!

Marion: Hey, Raziella! Your important visitors just walked in! Come on out now and speak.

Raziella walks out from the bedroom, donning a silk mikado dress, a timid pallid face, jet black hair plastered down on her face , dropping atop her shoulders.

Waubash: Hey, Raziella, it's me now! You know me. It's the week of us, moonshiners, now. Let's all celebrate! What about it?

Raziella: Yes, and do I know you! Nothing less than a barbarian's beast! A true beast among the beasts!

Marion: Don’t name: call like that, now. Let's go out! It’ll be fun for all of us, Raziella.

Jimbo: Awe, I understand perfectly well. (winks)I’ll tell ya what! We don’t have to go out and celebrate moonshiners day, if you don’t want to. (laughs) I damn sure wish Annie was here now.

Waubash: What about it? What’s on? What’s hot inside the cast iron cooking pot?

Jimbo: Look what I thought to bring along. (holds up a deck of playing cards)

Marion: That’s all good. Isn’t it Raziella? Look! We all can sit around here and play cards, eh?

Waubash: And what else goes with it? Are we playing for money? Honey? Or what?

Jimbo: Listen at him now, talking about money and honey, eh? All of us might need a little more money, but who among usisn’t getting his share of honey these days?(rogues laugh)

All three men arise from the couch, and sit at the dining table. Jimbo begins shuffling cards

Marion: Come on over and have a seat with us, Raziella. Let's all play cards!

Jimbo suddenly rises, steps back out onto the porch. He steps back inside with a plastic milk jug in his right hand.

Jimbo: Look what I thought to bring along, boys and ladies! (holds the milk jug up) We all gotta celebrate this week of these great men, who built this damn half a town here, eh?

Raziella’s eyes widen suddenly, gasping.

Jimbo: Awe now, nobody has to worry about anything. I’ve already cut and flavored this stuff! It's now fifty: fifty, coffee and vanilla flavored! You like that, I know it! (rogues laugh)

Waubash: Hell, a hundred: proof might as well be water for all of us, right? (laughs)

Jimbo: Yeah! Pour us all a good shot, pops! We need to get this party started.

Marion pours the shots, takes a seat at the table, draws first hand from the deck

Raziella suddenly turns, racing hysterically back into the bedroom

Marion: Raziella! Come back out here with us. You don’t have to leave us like that. (tosses back a shot) Come back out here ‘n hang out with all of us!

Jimbo: You just don’t know what you are missing here with us, now! I want to meet with you. It's good wine and fine times round hereabouts now!

Marion: (smiles, sighs) Excuse me fellows. I need to check on her. Sit out here, drink, and be merry while I am away from the table.

Stage lights gradually fade out

Stage lights gradually fade back in

Marion is in the bedroom

Raziella is curled up on the bed in a fetal position, weeping

Marion: What on earth is the matter? We are just enjoying the day. We all could have gone out, but you wanted to stay here. So we made do, no problem, eh?

Raziella: (sits up suddenly in the bed, clenching her teeth) Get those filthy barbarians out of this house right now, Marion! We can’t have it now! I don’t even want to look at them, much less hear all of their filthy plebian talk! (growls, rages) Get them out of my house, now! Or else!

Jimbo: (from inside the kitchen) Hey! What's going on in that bedroom? Must be something sweet, right! (rogues laugh) You are missing a real treat out here!

Raziella: (clenching her teeth) Do something, Marion, and I do mean right now! Or else! Do you understand me? I want these filthy rogues, with their disgusting talk, out of this house, and now!

Marion: But one of ‘em is Waubash. You know, your old associate. We just want to hang out and party. Today is Saturday, and a festival on top of that.

Raziella: Look at me when I speak to you, Marion.. I don’t give a happy damn if he’s Jesus Christ! I want both of these people out, and right now! Or else!

Stage lights gradually fade out

Marion, Raziella exit

Stage lights gradually fade back in

Enter Jimbo, Marion, Waubash

Marion enters the kitchen, sits down at the dining table

Jimbo: What’s up, doc? I take it something sweet was going on inside that bedroom, eh?

Marion: (sighs) I don’t know about that.

Jimbo: It's OK, you don’t have to tell us about it, (laughs) if you don’t want to. We both understand, man!

Waubash: Take another shot and let all of the troubles go free!

Marion: (puppyish voice) Look! Awe fellows.., I have a nice wooden table outside in the oak shade by the end of the house, now. How about let's all of us go outside and enjoy the spring weather and the sunlight, eh? (smiles)

Jimbo: What in the hell are you talking about here, go outside? This game is going all too swell right here and now.

Marion: But, let's go on outside. Everything will be so much better then.

Jimbo: What’s to matter with ya, eh? Ya old lady cuttin’ you off or something, if ya don’t run us away? Is that what it is, sweetie pie there? No peanuts enough for the ole ham slap, eh? Hugh! Look at him whimpering now! (rogues laugh)

Marion: (laughs a half intoxicated rogue's laugh out loud)

Raziella: (screaming) Get back in here, Marion, and I mean it, right now!

Jimbo: Awe, listen at that, now will you! Look who carries the long hard throwing shaft in this house, boys! Hey? Look at him whimpering away like a pissed on kitten! Just look at this now!

Waubash: And look where it's being thrown! Up and down, whose what, where! (laughs)

Marion: (puppyish voice) Let's get on outside now. The good weather is wasting away.

Jimbo: Alright, alright, we're going outside. (turns) Let's go, Waubash. This man can’t stand up to his old lady.

Waubash: I’m utterly in shock, myself. If I wasn’t seeing it, I simply couldn’t believe it.

Jimbo: Look man! There is no damn way my old lady would ever talk to me like that, but whatever, man. It's you, a: wallowing down in the tinky: poo there on the damp ground, not me, fellow!

Stage lights gradually dim

Stage lights gradually brighten

Waubash and Jimbo go outside, sit down at the wooden table, play cards, and drink in the shade. Marion joins them after a few passing minutes inside.

Jimbo: What's up now? Is she finally letting you come out and play with us big boys?

Waubash: Yeah son, don’t let her push you around like she does. I know she is your wife, and all of that, but damn, son, you are still a man, two, swinging three! One must sink that shaft in, just right to get the job done as it needs to be. That is what your problem is, man! You ain't quite got it hung in just right yet, but keep on tying, man, you’ll hit it right soon!

Jimbo: At least, we think you’re still a man! (rogues laugh) Spy de eggs? Oh! I got it, only chickens have eggs! (laughs) You still are a man, right? (Waubash and Jimbo laugh heartily)

Marion: (hangs his head, puppyish voice) I don’t know about anything these days. (deeply sighs)Things will improve in time, I guess. I still have hope. A much better life patiently hangs somewhere just over the tequila sunrise horizon.

Jimbo: Yeah, doxy, (clasps right hand on right shoulder) that’s lookin’ up! I like that…(points into the beyond)Somewhere just over the tequila sunrise horizon! (pats Marion on the shoulder)

Stage lights gradually dim

Waubash, Jimbo, Marion, Raziella, exit

 

Act 3

Scene 2

The abandoned chapel of Saint Vesper across town

At a stone table covered in English Ivy

Enter Lilith, Raziella

Both sitting at the table

Raziella: Such a day, girly girl.., (gazes out, sighs) champagne sky, lightly puffing wind, scent of magnolia and new honey suckle with a hint of wisteria, hangs so delightfully in the air.

Lilith: I shall agree. Such is well worthy of notice. This scene is greatly enhanced by the melodious songs of cardinals, blue birds, and the trills of meadow wrens. I inhale deeply, (inhales, releases) breathing freely in my embrace of Mother Earth's divine, spiritual gifts.

A crow suddenly lands in a nearby gum tree, calls out

Raziella: He speaks. Hark now! (pause, softly speaks) Listen..He watches.

Lilith: He gazes upon us from the safety of the gum tree. He tells me that our time draws nigh. Our magic moment. Our occasion that shall stand for a lifetime, affecting an entire community realm. Our agreement to bond years, possibly future blood, and most certainly, fortunes rendered.

Raziella: I read your enchanting note in the Vale Arcana. An associate of mine named Selena, told me she knew you fairly well.

Lilith: Yes, I am familiar with Selena. She is the most pleasant lady to have around on proper occasions. We both jell very well, I must say. Angry Chaos virtually always tends to level out upon her acceptance of one’s cordial invitation.

Raziella: She told me I could meet you here on Wednesday morning this month of the year. Nine would be a perfect time, she said.

Lilith: Yes, I seek out the heavenly approach of Lunara Valeheart, spring sister to Blodeuwedd, daughter of the goddess, Ostara, this time of year. Truly I say, she reveals all secrets unto those who know how to make proper appeal.

Raziella: I was recently married. I’m already having major problems in my marriage, I must regretfully admit.

Lilith: Oh? Don’t all married people deal with ongoing challenges? Do tell me, dear lady.

 Raziella: (hesitates) Hmm, might she know how to transform flimsy flesh into solid oak wood?

Lilith: A guaranteed request well understood, and at your command, Mrs Raziella. ( reaches down, places a clear glass of gentle, gray green powder on the table) Sprinkle this dried powder of heartwood sage upon his food and into his drink every morning. Your problem will be solved in short order.

Raziella: That is nice! Ever so nice. (picks the glass up, examines contents) So much better even, than roast nanny rump and rice!

Lilith: I must warn you though, Mrs Raziella, the spirit of Ostara knows your true desires, and shall grant your carnal wishes accordingly.

Raziella: (smiles) I sure hope so! What must be done, indeed shall be.

Lilith: But, (in mysterious tones) I sense a far more compelling desire, Mrs Raziella. Verbalize that desire now, and it shall be yours!

Raziella: (pauses, gasps) There is absolutely nothing I desire more on earth, than to be the fairy queen of the enchanting realm, Tulip Thaloria, by Lasandra Waters.

Lilith: (smiles confidently, reaches underneath the table, hands over a large envelope) Once you return home, open this parchment envelope of whisper fox skin, sealed by spider silk, in secret. Tell no person. Everything you need to achieve your heart's greatest desire shall be locked away inside.

Raziella: (gasps deeply, smiles) I can’t believe it! My fabulous day has arrived, at long last! My childhood, little girl dreams are coming true! (growls in ecstasy) I deserve this, after the abuse I have endured from the townspeople, the kids in school, the pathetic teachers, my mother's many abusive boy friends over the years, and so many more. I will show them! I will show them all up! They will all eat their pathetic hearts out when I’m finally the big fat hen on the roost, who leaves the golden poop, for all of them to fight over and wallow in throughout the blessed coop! Only I deserve this kind of status and position in life, including fabulous wealth, most certainly not anybody else!

Lilith: (smiles calmly, inquisitively) I am also obligated to inform you, Mrs Raziella, that absolutely every good thing has a price. What I have given you today is no exception.

Raziella: I’ll give you absolutely anything to have this! Tell me now! Name the price!

Lilith: One thing I can’t do is cast a love spell. For that, I may well be doomed to walk alone for eternity. However, I deeply desire a man of the meadows and wooded dales, a man who knows where all of the fairy glades are, and best herbal gardens. That kind of man that is so hard to find, this day and time. I want a man who can reveal to me the sounds of colors and the bewitching tints of the day breeze, and those most mysterious, misty veiled pixie realm openings found in fresh fall leaves! Most of all, Mrs Raziella, he also must be a man who knows how to court my very soul.

Raziella: (pauses, gasps, smiles) Ah! I know the perfect man for you! I have exactly the one you’ve always ordered!

Lilith: Please fully understand what I say. He must always remain loyal, in everything, to me. I am a very envious woman of the woods. Should he fail in granting my many expectations, then my greatest curse shall be upon him, and any other in his company.

Raziella: (smiles broadly) Outstanding! Thy wish to be granted in the fullest! I will never let you down.

Lilith: There is one final request that I need filled, however..

Raziella: (smiles) Just let me know, now!

Lilith: Steal your husband's soul, should you ever decide he has served your needs and out: served his guiding hand. Hecate demands that payment be rendered for her services in the doomed souls of wasting mortal men, since she is indebted to none other than Asmodeus himself.

Raziella: Thy humble wish, my dear midnight queen of both the soft half: moon, the hard dark moon, and the elegant fat one, is my supreme command.

Stage lights gradually dim

Raziella, Lilith exit

 

Act 3

Scene 3

At Buttercup Meadows

The wooden farmhouse living room scene

Enter Marion

Rushing around, sweeping the floor, dusting furniture, picking up things around the room, pauses briefly, glances up at the clock on the wall.

Sudden knock on the front door

Marion opens the door

Enter Waubash

Waubash: What’s going on, cat daddy? (rogues laugh) I’ve been away on another construction job, of late. What’s it been now? Three months, I assume?

Marion: (continues working along, puppyish voice)I don’t know. (shrugs) Something like that. It's good to see you anyway, man.

Waubash: It was work all the time for me, seven fourteen hour days, man. I was glad to get that layoff slip, to speak the truth.

Marion: Is your unemployment check coming in yet?

Waubash: It just began rolling in. All I really must do is call it: in every week. They don’t pay any attention to my work search, like they will claim they do.

Marion: (lightly chuckles) How much are you bringing in from it?

Waubash: With this overtime I get on these jobs I work, I always max out on the UE.

Marion: What is the max?

Waubash: Five hundred a week.

Marion: How long can you draw on it?

Waubash: I can draw for a full year. Then I’ll have to wait a year and a half before I can file again.

Marion: Wow! (gasp, pause, gazing out blankly)How do you work the system, then?

Waubash: Well, I’ll only draw maybe three or four months. It's midsummer now, and hot as a clam bake. I’ll take off. I’ll work again in September. When November or so comes around, I take off until after January, and work all the way through until next April. I do it like that so I can plant my garden, tend it, hunt, trap, fish, do what I must do ‘round my homestead, and live my own free: wheeling lifestyle to boot.

Marion: How do you find the jobs?

Waubash: They have this thing called a Hot Sheet. It has every construction job going on in North America and even Europe. I buy one, call the closest listing with the best job and the most money offered, set up for the first Monday morning, then I’m onsite wherever the job is by seven that morning. There may be a long line of people at that job site, but I always land a job.

Marion: Wow! (pauses momentarily, gazes off) What is your skill?

Waubash: (smiles) Welding, pipefitting, millwright work, or whatever top helper position they have an opening in that appeals to me. (laughs) So tell me about you, man. How is married life treating you?

Marion: (puppyish voice) Frankly, I was much happier being single. (sighs) I mean, it's one thing after another, man.

Waubash: How may I help?

Marion: I know she was your friend, and all, man, but I married her, unfortunately.

Waubash: Yeah? True, (shrugs) so very true. ‘Twas most definitely not me, no? So it was most certainly you!

Marion: She doesn’t let me touch her, man. Can you believe that? I got much more delicate touching before I ever met or married her.

Waubash: Damn it, man! I don’t exactly know what to say. (pause, gasp) Son! That most definitely would not work with this lone star rodeo cowboy, hoss! I gotta break: young pony and ride La Bronca damn hard, ever now and again, son!

Marion: (puppyish voice) That isn’t the half of it, let me tell ya. She is always complaining about us not having money. She wants mega: expensive royal fairy clothes, jewelry like fairies supposedly have, royal jewelry boxes, castle type night stands, big dark silver: trim gothic style mirrors and such, while hoarsely demanding that I buy all of this for her. She is telling me we need to rip out the walls on this house, add on to it, put in new teak wood flooring, cover this house in a special kind of vinyl siding, build a brick walkway outside, and put on a new fangled roof we simply do not need. We must build plush flower and hedge gardens around here, with a small porcelain goldfish pond like those of the romanticist era, or something. She even wants to screen: in my bloody front porch, with three hundred dollar Oriental wind chines in each corner! Look at all of these super expensive flowers, shrubs, and trees she’s pushed me into planting outside already, will you? All of this is loony toony crazy beyond ridiculous, man! I see no other way of describing the general situation, myself.

Waubash: (shocked) Son! (gasps) I’ve never heard of such. When I associated with her in all of these years, she appeared so deacon like, humble, so innocently meek and mild, to myself and everybody else. Nobody would believe these razzle: dazzle tales you are telling me!

Marion: They simply just don’t know the real truth of this situation. She fully believes she is living in some kind of magic, fairy: land kingdom, man, where she is somehow queen of this imaginary realm by a lake somewhere. I guess that is why she pushed me into all of that debt for the wedding, with that fairy queen’s palace motif we had, and all. The cost was heading towards a grandiose hundred thousand dollars worth., if I might tell you so.

Waubash: (gasp) Are you being serious with me?

Marion: On top of that, you did know that she is raging bulimic, didn’t you? When she is in the middle of that mental spaghetti garbage pile, she really gets tangled up into an ultra hyper: fantasy mode. She says the queen of her kingdom must always be a model of supreme fitness, Godliness, purity, and vice control. It's all every bit as sick as it is whacked!

Waubash: (gasp) She always kept many secrets, it appears. I never knew this, and neither does anybody else. Man, I honestly don’t know what to say! Spaghetti noodles and whack: a: doodle, will not make anybody who knows her believe either one of us telling them this tale.

Marion: (puppyish voice) I was a very contented, happy man before I ever was married. My home here was perfect for me. My job was outstanding. I mean, I teach history, for Pete's sake! I love history. What is wrong with that? I like to take an occasional gourmet chew. I like to drink good whiskey and homemade muscadine wine, from time to time. I like hanging out with my half-baked happy go lucky fun friends, riding hither ‘n thither, and casually returning back again. Now she is demanding me to give all of that up, or else, she blatantly barks over to me, virtually every day. Can you honestly believe it?

Waubash: What kind of else does she mean? That sounds very harsh, coming from this gentle lamb everybody else knows. The lamb speaketh like a dragon, according to you, eh?

Marion: (puppyish voice) Well, I paused by a lawyer’s office the other day, man. I wanted to file a motion for divorce proceedings. He tells me with what I’ve already done, I will have to mortgage out my house again, and give that to her!

Waubash: Son of a gun, man! I’m at a loss for words. How, so quickly?

Marion: (puppyish voice) She had some money she wanted to place into my four O one K account and my personal state retirement account. It was a nice tidy sum, like twenty percent of what I already had in each account. She rages back to me that married people should behave as one, and we didn’t. So I foolishly consented to it.

Waubash: Where in heaven’s name did she get any money from?

Marion: She claims she had a wealthy aunt on her father's side who died, leaving her some. Well, this lawyer then tells me I will have to hand her some eighty percent of what I hold in either account, should we split.

Waubash: Son of a real female dog, big and hairy! It's like they have made you a criminal, only for the crime of being married!

Marion: (gasps, hangs his head as he labors along, whimpers) I simply don’t know what to do man! Help me out, please! What on earth do I do? (whimpers) I suffer such a ruthless, new form of callous slavery. Oh, how I wish I could still run wild, and free!

Waubash: Listen to me. This is what you do. Right now, drop your retirement funds into a longevity retirement account, which is made up of annuities, not cash holdings. Nobody can touch those. Not even the government. Leave her vested amounts inside the original accounts. (shrugs) Then sell this house, split the profit with her, if there is any; and lo, then, my dear friend, you’ll be a free man, free to begin a life all over again!

Marion: (puppyish voice) This lawyer claims I will have to pay her a thousand a month in alimony payments, on top of everything else. Can you believe that?

Waubash: This story is a truth greater than fiction. I, personally, would drag my feet like hell, on that alimony. It would cost her more in lawyer fees trying to take me to court, than she would make getting me there before any judge.

Marion: (puppyish voice) But I teach, and they would fire me for doing like that! (whimpers) They will black ball me from getting employed as a teacher anywhere in America! (hangs head, gasps, picks head up) I simply cannot figure out what is going on. Something is, definitely, but I can’t figure out exactly what, man.

Waubash: Develop another career then. That’s what I would do! (shrugs) Hell man, I don’t know. (chuckles) Maybe she is fattening you up for the great ceremonial kill: feast, like the wicked witch does people inside them fairy tale kingdoms, man! The circus was in town not too long ago at the Spring Fest, so I heard. Some ancient gypsy fortune teller she met there must be gazing into crystal, and informing her exactly how to set this big bat swarming ceremony up. Some people really can do that, you know?

Marion: This is all your fault man! (half laughs) How come you didn’t tell me she was so crazy like this? You knew her for years, man. Don’t try to tell me you didn't know about it! You should have given me a heads up on this mess.

Waubash: Well, you couldn’t be happy simply tasting a tea spoon full of the honey, hither an’ thither, man. You had to up: and: go mortgage out the whole damn bee: hive! Evidently, (shrugs) on top of that, you don’t even know how to tend bees!

Marion: (puppyish voice) Tasting the honey..? I wish! I wasn’t tasting anything back then from her, and still aint, even after mortgaging out the whole damn bee hive, man. (hangs head, sighs deeply) But, I’m in one hell of a pickle, man. (picks head up, shrugs) I suppose I’ll just have to deal with this. I’m locked in, and there is simply nothing I can do about this situation, except accept it as being final.

Waubash: Well here, let's find that whiskey bottle and have us both a tall drink. You can do that and everything will be alright then.

Marion: (sad voice) I can’t even do that anymore. She is over: demanding that I quit for good, or else.

Waubash: Well, where is she at now? She isn’t here, far as I can tell.

Marion: She is visiting her mother’s place right now. It's getting about time for her to come back, though.

Waubash: (laughs suddenly, shakes head) I don’t have any decent advice. I told you what I would do, personally. I don’t know what else to say, (shrugs) except may the best be with you always, man.

Marion: (puppyish voice) I’m just stuck in this situation, man, and I am genuinely tired of it. I will simply have to live with it, I guess. That’s all I know. I’m inside a crazy cave catacomb maze, and honestly, there is no sensible way out.

Stage lights gradually dim

Waubash, Marion, exit

 

Act 3

Scene 4

In Buttercup Meadows

The wooden farmhouse living room

Enter Marion

Sweeping the floor, dusting, picking things up from the floor, cleaning books and magazines from the table top, pauses, gazing at the clock on the wall, sighs.

Marion: (Sighs) What on earth am I going to prepare for lunch? Raziella will be home soon.

Sudden knock on the front door

Marion: Gosh! Who the hell might that be at such a time?

Walks over and opens the front door

Enter Jombo, Waubash, Annie

Jimbo: Hello! Hello! Hello! How does it go, mate?

Annie: (scottish brougue) I’ve heard so much about you and your new wife! I absolutely have to meet her.

Waubash: Yeah, it's been a while, exactly as before. Maybe four months, I suppose?

Marion: All of you come on inside and have a seat.

All sit down on the couch

Marion: Oh yeah? Where did you go away to now?

Waubash: Awe, I was in Appleton, Wisconsin, man. It was party time there, the whole time. When they drafted me to pick up lunch for the crew at McDonalds, I literally bumped into this knockout blond while I was waiting, and we both started talking. Before I knew it she had me move in with her, right and tight, just like that. It was all on, like ole Donkey Kong then!

Annie: Well lets get a card game going sound here. We’ll celebrate life, eh?

Reaches inside a back: pack she is carrying, pulls out a half gallon of rum

Annie: Get the big tin cups now! Get the tin cups. I have mine!

Pulls it from the back: pack

Marion: We can use coffee cups!

Picks up coffee cups from the table. Brings them over to the couch

Annie pours everybody two thirds of a cup full

Jimbo: Souffle them playing cards! I feel like a true winner today.

 Annie souffles the cards out on the coffee table

Waubash: What's in the ante? Another shot? Another bottle full? Five bucks? Ten? Please tell me when!

Front door suddenly opens

Enter Raziella

Huffs inside with an angry expression

Walks directly to the bedroom. Never speaks a word, slams door

Annie: Oh, there the newly wedded woman is! Come on, sit a spell and socialize a bit, eh?

Jimbo: Oh no, boy, look out now! No snoot for tonight, son! (rogues laugh)

Marion: Let me go check up on her.

Arises, walks to the bedroom

Annie: If you need another woman’s touch to do its magic in these situations, just let me know!

Downs half a glass full of rum

 

Stage lights gradually dim

Marion, Raziella, Jimbo, Annie exit

Stage lights gradually brighten

 

Inside the back bedroom

Enter Marion, Raziella

Raziella: You get those filthy rogues out of my house, right now, Marion! (cries) I can’t stand it. I don’t know what we are going to do! Get those people out right now!

Marion: It's only Waubash, Jimbo, and Annie! (smiles) Annie really wants to meet with you.

Raziella: You are a professional, for crying out loud here, Marion! Stop hanging around such low life plebian filth!

Marion: You wouldn’t believe how much money they make.

Raziella: What in hell’s name are you talking about, Marion? You’ll believe anything, won’t you?

Marion: Waubash works loads of overtime. I bet he turns big money, himself. I’ve been thinking about quitting what I am doing.

Raziella: I bet he isn’t making anything! Tell him to prove it! If you begin doing that kind of work it will really drag me down. I will not be able to take it. I can tell you one thing, right here and now. You’ll go down with me, if I go down! I will not be the only one to fall in this story. No man anywhere is going to do me like my father did my mother. My father left my mother with nothing! With nothing, Marion, (sobs hysterically) and to raise his three children by herself!

Marion: I’ll show you. Let me get my check stub from teaching.

Walks over to the night stand, opens top drawer

Marion: Here it is. (holds the pay stub up) Waubash keeps his stubs in the glove compartment of his car. He was paid just this Thursday, when his last job probably ran out. He will have another one there, if not. Wait right here.

Stage lights gradually dim

Marion, Raziella exit

Stage lights gradually brighten

 

Inside the living room

Enter Marion, Jimbo, Annie

Jimbo: Hey, Popsie, did you get your old lady’s kinks ironed out?

Marion: I suppose. I tried, anyway.

Jimbo: I heard no sound, Mack! You supposed to get jiggy wid it! (laughs)

Annie: Shut up like that, Jim!

Jimbo: Awe, now, don’t you go an’ get saucy with me, now woman!

Marion: Hey Waubash! Didn’t you get paid Thursday, man?

Waubash: Awe, that was Thursday, two weeks ago, why?

Marion: You have the stub inside the truck?

Waubash: Yeah, right there inside the glove compartment.

Marion: Can I see it? Here is what a five year teacher makes.

Waubash: (takes the paystub) Damn! He cleared a full twelve hundred dollars for the month, now! Look at that. (gasp)

Jimbo: Awe, is that all? Is that all a damn five year teacher makes? How the hell do you live off that? You on stamps, or something, cheesy? (laughing)

Annie: (laughing, shaking her head)

Waubash: (steps outside, steps back inside, paystubb in hand) Here son, if you really want to see it. I shudder to fathom the future of it, though.

Marion: (takes the pay stub, pauses as he examines it, mumbles) Six thousand dollars for the month. One hundred seventy six hours overtime. Nineteen dollars an hour. Tax fifteen hundred. Still makes it!

Shakes his head, Marion exists suddenly

 

Stage lights gradually dim

Waubash, Annie, Jimbo exit

Stage lights gradually brighten

 

Inside the bedroom

Enter Marion, Raziella

Marion: See, look at this pay stub! Look at the money I could be making simply by running with Waubash. (hands Raziella the pay stub)

Raziella: (receives the pay stub) I don’t care! You working with that trash, are not going to cause my kingdom to become one of losers, wastrels, and vagabonds. Do you understand me? Are you not good enough to give me what I want? What kind of man are you, Marion? You should call yourself a boy. You are not anything like a real man to me! You disgust me, outright! Maybe I should have married Waubash, or Donald, or Gooseman, or one of my others after all. That's what you are, Marion, a boy, (screams)if not even a God forsaken woman!

Marion: How dare you lay there like you do, and insult me this way! What the hell are you talking about?

Raziella: You go get another job to go with your teaching job! Stop wasting your money! Stop wasting time with that trash out there! Demand for them all to leave my house, if you are really a man!

Stage lights gradually dim

Marion, Raziella, exit

Stage lights gradually brighten

 

The living room

Enter Marion, Jimbo, Annie, Waubash

Jimbo: What’s the matter? How did the six grand cleared, butt: up against the fifteen hundred before it was cut? What did the old gray wolf howl out to you now?

Annie: Yeah, (tipsy) dude, you need to trim the old hedge better, or something. Something ‘round here is lacking and slacking! I personally think you need to really dip hard into the bangle, rather than hang around and simply dangle.

Waubash: What’s up? Is she standing in her place yet?

Marion: Shut up! I’m sick of it! (picks a table chair up nearby, smashes it down upon the floor) Get out of my house, all of you! Out now! Go away! Go!

Annie: Well, we were only playing! Where is your old lady? I want to speak with her.

Jimbo: Yeah man, don’t get all saucy with me! It's not our fault you don’t have enough eggs to stand up to your old lady. Mine would never do me like yours does you! Kitty cat or no kitty cat, I don’t care. Yeah, we’ll leave your damn place, man! Come on Annie and Waubash, let's get the hell out of here. I don’t give a happy damn if I never come back to this place again, myself! You and your old lady frankly can both jump on down and go schmoot a boot for all I care!

Stage lights gradually dim

Waubash, Jimbo, Marion, Annie, Raziella exit

Curtains Fall

 

Act 4

Scene 1

In Buttercup Meadows

The wood: framed farmhouse living room

Enter Raziella, Marian

On the couch

Marian: I suppose all of my friends are gone for good now. Are you finally happy, Raziella?

Raziella: That’s a good beginning, Marian. My enchanted kingdom demands creative endeavor and much labor. Nobody loafs in Tulip Thaloria, by Lasandra Waters. Freeloaders are left by the wayside to starve. One who doesn’t labor to his best potential, dies. Nobody owes anybody anything in our kingdom, Marian. If one can’t function, then what good is he to anybody anywhere, anyway?

Marian: But my friends were not bums and freeloaders, Raziella. Actually, they are highly productive people. Like I showed you.. Look how much Waubash made! The man made six thousand dollars in one month! Jimbo turns maybe three thousand a month at the textile mill. Annie is a mental health case worker. She does pretty good herself; better than me, actually!

Raziella: These people are not true professionals, Marian! Professionals act a certain way, behave a certain way, and manage personal affairs a certain specific way. Your so: called friends are more like decently paid, uneducated hobos along those considerations, than anything else. Look how they spend their free time carousing around, drinking all the time, or out somewhere in some stupid lounge, throwing their hard earned money away! None of these people ever attend church, or dignified cultural gatherings of any type.

Marian: But life is to be enjoyed, Raziella! I honestly don’t care what anybody thinks when they ride by my place. I live for what makes me feel good. I love, if not crave outright, relaxation!

Raziella: All people should be productive during their off time. None of this wasting precious limited time in my kingdom! That character, Waubash.. Yeah, he’s productive alright! I think I’ll call the police on him in a few minutes anyway. He needs to be taught a lesson, with that know it all, wise cracking attitude and that slouch: drunkard’s way he has! I’ll fix him good, like he’s never seen before. When I finish with him he’ll know what it feels like to get slammed, jacked, and smacked all around in this world. Trash like him deserves nothing less from the rest of humanity.

Marian: But he was your friend before he was ever mine! Look how you’re doing him, Raziella! What kind of person are you?

Raziella: (grits teeth, glares hard) Look at me when I speak to you, Marian.. You are going to put all of that away in our emerging enchanted kingdom. You can turn: more cash, easier. Get another job on the side! Don’t they have afternoon and weekend classes you can teach at the school? Be a tutor at the school. Work at the library as a tech, for Christ's sake! I know of a building supplier in town who will hire you on afternoons and weekends. Do something productive around here with your off time, except whine and complain about everything, Marian!

Marian: Me, complaining? Look at yourself! You are the only one I hear whining all the time! I was enjoying my life, personally. By the way, what contribution to this kingdom of yours are you going to make?

Raziella: I am the fairy queen of this realm. I will stay at home and maintain the documentary affairs. I make sure everything is well organized, decorated, all funds are accounted for, and so much more. I also engage in much public relations activity. No empire exists by itself, Marian. That is what my job is, for your information!

Marian: (sighs, gazes blankly) My number one concern is to enjoy my life, pure and simple. I am not here on this earth to outdo any neighbor, certainly not my family, and I damn sure don’t have anything to prove to anybody. I just want peace and contentment in my life, that’s all.

Raziella: (Raises from the couch, grabs Marian by the chin and mouth, harsh voice) Look at me, and look well when I speak to you. You are going to get a second job. You WILL work at least seven more hours a day. You WILL work weekends! I have new royal chamber clothes to buy and more up: keep on this place to do! We must look the part if we are to make the mark. You WILL open up a five hundred thousand dollar life insurance policy, and commence making contributions in specified continuous amounts immediately! You WILL open up a dividend paying stock account, and commence making these same kinds of contributions! Any funds remaining, you WILL put back into the principal of this house. You WILL open an additional fund for saving up a down payment on another house. This estate actually needs three more houses to be totally self: sufficient. Do you understand me, Marian? LOOK at ME! You WILL comply with my each and every command, (screams though clenched teeth) or I WILL utterly devastate you! And there is absolutely NOTHING you can do to neutralize this situation! (throws Marian’s face to the left side)

Marian: (gasps) But why, Raziella, are you doing this?(sobs) I love you dearly! That is why I married you. Why do you want to hurt me so, and act like this? Seriously, my mind doesn’t want to believe what my eyes are beholding. We, as a couple, don’t have to live under such tension. We could actually live a very merry life, to speak the truth.

Raziella: (screams) Stop it! Just stop your senseless talk! I don’t want to hear it. We are going to get on track with our program tomorrow. When you get paid, I demand to see your pay stub, each and every pay period. When you open the accounts I mentioned, and you will ASAP! I demand to see paper work proving it. I demand to see paperwork clearly revealing the payment contributions, each and every month. You WILL max out your state retirement and your Roth IRA. We absolutely MUST make more money! What you presently have coming in, is in no way enough. We need more, for the teak wood floor and the new Forever Doors. We need so much more for the grand plans I have, and our forthcoming mighty community score!

Marian: If people don’t like what they see, then they can hit the gas pedal and ride on past, as far as I am concerned.. We don’t need all of that garbage you speak of, Raziella. Anybody who doesn't like me, can simply walk on by, right into a great big live oak tree. If they should be more pleased, they can take an eternal swim in the great blue sea! (rises from the couch, embracing Raziella, sobs)If only I could somehow get you to agree!

Stage lights gradually dim

Raziella, Marian, exit

 

Act 4

Scene 2

In Buttercup Meadows

The cabin farmhouse living room

Enter Marion, Raziella

In the kitchen

Marion: (pacing the floor, clasping face, moaning) Woe is me! (sobs) No man anywhere has raced around so much in all of human history! Not even Alexander the Great when he conquered the whole world, or Nimrod, the first mighty king of exotic west Asian mystery! I’m up with the sun, trotting throughout the day. I’m still moving around when it's down, when I should be crashing into the hay! (moans) Good Lord in heaven, I simply want to know, just what on earth is my mortal fate? Only this much knowledge, dear Lord, I desperately need for you to bestow.

Raziella: (with hands on both hips, tapping right foot, glaring, smirking) Thank you for the silver glass slippers. I’m so grateful for the gold dust in my hair. I humbly appreciate the elegant palace dining table I have, and this fancy gleaming ball: room gown I now wear. I’ve gone into this, from a dreadful tobacco field in tattered denim overalls and ragged tie: dyed tee shirts, from ceaseless grind and grits into bedazzling glitter ‘n glitz! Where I stand in the present, most certainly is not as divine as mortal life shall get! Now, cut that grass, boy! Trim those wonderful romantic hedges! Wipe down each and every ageless time: stained pane of window glass! Forget what neighbors who envy us may allege. A luxurious fairy queen, such as myself, deserves every golden toy! Allow those sniveling, coveting outlanders camped out on our most distant borders, to possess our castaway iron and tarnished brass! (speaks with ecstatic emphasis)Such exhilarating self: exaltation most truly gives me great joy!

Marion: (whimpering, a puppyish voice) Oh! Perish the dreadful moment, I’m laboring myself into draining oblivion. Look how much weight I’ve lost! How long must I keep on running, no matter what the terrible cost? I work over at the school all day. In the afternoon I’m at the grocery supply store. On the weekends I tutor, when I’m not cooking at Lady Cox’s greasy spoon restaurant, doing some incessant chore; (gasps, pleads) Yet still, my dearest Raziella, you keep on screaming for me to do more!

Raziella: Yes, we need more, so much more to beat this overwhelming community score! Like bees who need more honey, somehow we must find more glitter ‘n money! I know it may sound funny, but this entire estate is obligated to glint, at a most magnificent degree when it's sunny!

Marion: (sobs, whines) How I miss those days when I had no needs, those glorious weekends when I lived with such elegant ease. Back then I could lay around, or even listen to the guest poet at the county library uptown! Now, all I feel that I can do is walk around with my head down, wearing this great big frown! (excited voice) When, oh when, shall my time of misery finally end, (desperately screams) oh, tell me somebody, please!

Raziella: Does the moon not need more night? Does a roaming stag not need more corn and soy beans? Does a saint not need more that’s sin free and that which is right, if while inside the good Lord's presence, he maintains the supreme king’s delight? Does a ball player not need a whole team? Well, this estate needs more golden inflow to materialize my illustrious phantasmagorical dream!

Marion: (sighs, puppyish voice) My dearest Raziella, (sobs) how on earth could you be so cruel? I’m laboring myself into oblivion, (faces Raziella, kneels, sobs) yet all for you my dear, I’m your fool! (stands) I stand here, and so, declare, when outside it's sunny with elegant blossoms, flowing with fresh honey suckle flower drenched air, how is it that you still scream and rage, as if you have not the least single care? Or even one simple moment of cheerfulness that you and I might pause in this drudgery to share?

Raziella: If you’re doing all that can be done, then most certainly you shall take what you have and make more out of it. You’ll somehow find free time, and get into advanced school!

Marion: What are you talking about? Go back to school? When? How! Doing what? Please make some sense for once!

Raziella: You’ll go back and get an MA degree!

Marion: In what, for Peat's sake!

Raziella: In administration, of course!

Marion: (whines) I probably will not even be able to find work with it, even if I should get it. Look at how many people out there are walking around unemployed with an MA degree these days!

Raziella: Just shut up that foolish loser's talk! Your mother is from this town and county. Her family has deep connections here. All of them are best friends with the elites in this town and county, and that includes the local Board of Education. First, get that degree at night, online, then approach your mother’s sister, Grace Jeanean. She will get you right into an office somewhere in the county here. I know it! No matter what it takes, even if it means layin’ up with the county manager and the school superintendent, paying hard earned money for fulfillment of the request, or something. You and I both know, she would actually go that far down all for you!

Marion: Get the degree at night? When at night, with all of this work I do, pray tell?

Raziella: You spend eight hours sleeping, don’t you? Take four and do the course work.

Marion: You are crazy, you know that? At least four koo: koo birds really have built a whole nest inside that head of yours!

Raziella: Don’t they offer free grants to do that in the school where you work?

Marion: (gasp, shrugs) I don’t know! Tell me so! Ne’er such a sight, e’er did I see they showed!

Raziella: Well I do know, and I believe they do. (clenches teeth, growls) Look at me.. Here, in my face! (left cheek, points)Tomorrow you will go ask, find out what you must do, then sign up! Do you hear me? You’ll get a raise when you do that, right off the bat. When you are half way finished, you will get another nice raise. Once you finish, then you’ll net in an additional fabulous raise, to be sure. (sighs, gazes off blankly) That will be just enough, be what the effort spent is worth, for me to initiate the next step in building our divine kingdom, right here on secular earth!

  

Act 4

Scene 3

In Buttercup Meadows

The cabin farmhouse living room

One Year and a half later

Enter Marion, Raziella

Both are well dressed, standing behind the couch

Raziella: Well at long last, today is the grand day! Your graduation has now passed, that new position of Second Master, now opens its door unto you with such grace.

Marion: Yes, today is my fabulous day, I must so loudly stand before you and say. My reflection in yon: wall mirror appears so fine, yet I suppose it's your final word that shall make me shine. Heaven help me! It's been such a long, trying time!

Raziella: Yes, every day you shall make an extra effort to invest. Surely in: so doing, you shall excel in each and every test. Yet still, there is one thing you’ve missed, our enchanted kingdom still requires more funds. The anticipated end to this great quest shan't be found, since our best effort has now only begun! Let now, there be no father twist. This point blank note, I shall incessantly insist!

Marion: Now, now, (sighs) holy cow! Can you not simply pause, gazing forth upon me, saying wow? Must you keep on pushing me instead of cheering, rather than proclaiming my latest successes aloud? Behold, the long lost sheep has finally been found! What on earth shall it take to ever make you proud?

Raziella: Only when my glorious kingdom has materialized, shall tears of joy then be in my eyes. Thus far we both have come, hence forth now we must try. A card hand is not a winner until the kitty has been matched. No lottery player is a triumphator until the first ticket he decides to buy. A chicken farmer shall retain no gain, until the laying hen’s first egg is hatched.

Marion: What now? What else? What lies ahead that I must do? What more labor must I commence? I work each and every afternoon at the school. I work at the grocery store, the restaurant, and the building supplier. We’ve paid the house here completely off! I have invested religiously into all of those insurances and dividend accounts you wanted. What now? What else? When shall we both have time for ourselves?

Raziella: We need a new primary home, and at least two rental homes. (picks a cloth wrapped package up in the right hand from the coffee table)

Marion: A new primary home! (back falls against the living room wall) What in hell is wrong with this one? I just paid this house all off in full, for heaven's sake here!

Raziella: Yes, I’ve found a splendid place in Eastmoor Manor Shores, certainly a most elegant classical Greek revival chateau home on a corner lot in the Heliotrope Hydrangea Hills area.

Marion: What! (astonished) You mean where all of those stuck up, head shoved up their posterior types of people live in Eastmoor County here! I don’t care a: happy: damn about living over in that place, with any of those plastic people, Raziella!

Raziella: (walks up, slaps his face, screams) I made you, boy! I can destroy you! You simply have no idea as to the amount of power I command over your head, do you Marion? Now, you’re only a punk, pukish little boy; but I am going to make you into a real man, exactly like an accomplished queen of a divine realm fully deserves!

Marion: What on earth are you speaking of? (gasps) Have you lost your confounded mind? What do you think I am, crazy? Do you somehow think I’m blind?

Raziella: (tosses the wrapped package into the nearby love seat)

Marion: (picks up package, unwraps the package, shakes it open) What in the hell is this? It's the plastic skin and face of a young man, of some sort! Who in hell’s name is this? What exactly is this?

Raziella: Yes, you don’t know who that is? It's the plasticised face and skin of a real, highly accomplished man, named Alessandro Vittorio de Muranello, given to me by a very close friend named Lilith. (in a mysterious tone) It came all the way from Venice, Italy, crafted by none other than the legendary mask maker, L’Ombra himself, whose masks take on a new persona and life when adventurous owners dare to don them.

Marion: (excited, astonished) What in the hell are you talking about, Raziella? So what? Why should I care about that?

Raziella: Because, from now on, you are going to wear that each and every day you exit these doors, that’s why!

Marion: (angry, puppyish voice) What! You are a true psychopath! You’re really sick in the head, Raziella, you know it? Sick! Sick! Sick, like the Spanish Flu when it's slick!

Raziella: (screams) Shut up your empty talking and put that skin on! (assaults him with her fist) Do it NOW! Become a true man, for a change around this place! I deserve a certain kind of real man, and no person but you, shall indeed become that real man! Everybody shall know of the shining super rock star I own and am married to. (screams)I deserve no less at the very least, my truth to tell! (twists her body as if before a mirror) Are you with me? Or else!

Marion: (whimpers, puppyish voice) But I don’t want to put that suit on. (slowly begins putting the suit on) I can’t stand wearing plastic like this. (sobs, faces Raziella) I love you so much, dearest Raziella, why, oh why do you treat me this way? I am a real man! I am a real man! I shall scream it all the way from the sweet Tybee Island beach, to the majestic Mojave sands! (the suit is completely on) I am a real man! I am a real man!

Raziella: Yes, you will most surely be MY real man! Allow a forward step thus initiated, to indeed be the first step. (grabs Marion’s left ear, pulls him toward the couch, sits down) Now, you will do me like only my kind of real man ever could!

Marion: (crying, puppyish voice) What on earth are you talking about, Raziella? (sobs bitterly) I love you dearly, my angel, but you truly are a sick puppy, from the bottom of my very heart!

Raziella: Now.., drop down, boy! Take off my silver glass slippers! (Marion takes off the glass slippers) Now, lick my toes well, exactly like the queen of a fairy kingdom deserves. (Marion begins licking her feet) Yeah! Awe yeah! My gosh, it simply takes my breath away! (speaking though clenched teeth, growling) You dirty filthy rotten dog! How could you be so bumbling dumb? You low life piece of putrid trash! You slimy gutter scum! You disgust me so much! Lick the bottoms of my feet, boy! Awe yeah, my heart is about to cease! Awe! Awe! Hmm! My! (suddenly turns around on the couch) I lust for a magic touch! Lick my heels. Yes! Oh yes! Lick the back side, lick the round, allow that gyrating tongue to abide! Yes, my good little boy, lick where the most sensitive nerves are always found! Do it just right! Do it just becuz! Do it no other way, but like a real man truly does!

Stage lights gradually dim

Marion, Raziella exit

 

Act 4

Scene4

In Buttercup Meadows

The cabin farmhouse living room

 

Enter Marion, Raziella

Nine months later

Marion: (pacing back and forth across the floor) Woe is me! Woe is me! I simply can’t tolerate this micromanaging misery. I labor from dawn. I slave until dusk, all of this sweatshop drudgery right here in the land of: In God We Trust.

Raziella: Oh Marion dear? (heavy sigh) We need more money! We need more money! We need more money like a bear does honey! It may sound funny! It may sicken your tummy, but we need more money like a hay farmer needs a rainy day to be sunny!

Marion: I’m Second Master now at the academy. I still tutor in the evenings. I do weekend classes. I work in the evenings at the local book store. (slaps his forehead) How on earth, pray tell, can I bring in more?

Raziella: Seek out a high paying position, now that is what you may do. Pick it up from that which lies around you, like a hobo does who needs a new shoe!

Marion: I know where I may apply, apply for employment correcting an economy that dies. I will put in for working as an academy based Community Caseworker. Yes, now that is what I shall do, then my overtaxed wages shall leap twice times one and two!

Stage lights gradually fade out

Stage lights gradually brighten

 

Four months later….

Inside the Chateau de Heliotrope Hydrangea Hills

Marion: (pacing the floor) Oh, what a dread, (slaps his forehead) such a perverted reality! I'm hung so deep in over my head! What horror have I found since saying, I do, when I became thus wed, swearing to remain indefinitely true! She wants more! More! More! (screams) I simply can’t swing any higher to strike her pinata diamond score! Like the surging sea does when it eats up the golden sanded shore! (whines) What on earth, please tell me now, am I laboring so for?

Raziella: Feast your eyes on what we’ve done! Our kingdom glitters like the morning sun. We bought the chateau two months ago. Now all of those so ignorant we grew up with, will surely know! Soon we both will finally have this relentless battle won! Now we need two more rentals. Maybe then our labor shall be done! Please, oh please, do search around you again for another increase.

Marion: Look at me! Just look at me! I’ll say it again! (puppyish voice)My arms and legs feel so stiff, and so does my skin! (pulls up his sleeves) I walk around feeling as if I see stars, yet all of my skin and flesh, exactly like oak wood, is setting up shockingly hard!

Stage lights gradually fade out

Stage lights gradually brighten

Three months later..

Raziella: We have one of the needed extra tenement houses. We have a new Jaguar XJS car that looks so fine sitting up inside our exclusive chateau yard! We have our lavish income and rental allowances. Now, my real man, ‘tis us who hold all of the playing cards! We command the world, since via the courts, we now control Mars! The increase from that new position of Curriculum Specialist certainly made a great diff’. Yes, those dramatic earnings indeed turned a mighty fine lift! Yet still, we need more! More! More! So much so that I, myself, no longer can keep a total score! Like a love so great we all adore, and the eagles flying so high in the sky easefully soar, our grandacious divine kingdom here still longs to roar!

Marion: (in a puppyish voice) Look at me! Look at me! My whole body is stiff and hard as a live oak tree! My arms and legs only clink about, not moving as they should! What, pray tell, is happening? Doctors don’t even know! I have all of this stuff you speak of around me, but what now have I to show? Look at me inside this haunting wall mirror! I’m shrinking! I’m shrinking into a little boy. Aye, I look like some kind of whacked: out wooden, little boy toy! I have a great job! I have a big house! But who shall have it all, should a day e’er arrive when I’m cast aside without?

Raziella: (calm, firm voice) But you are destined to be the real man I need. Zip on that skin and mask, before you exit this house to leave! In our modern world, a puppet needs no strings. I have this electronic control box that shall positively motivate you into doing practically anything.

Marion: But I am a real man! I am a real man! I’ll scream it all the way from Fort Pullaski, to the Santa Monica Strand! I am a real man! Yes, such a mysterious thing I still am! You may not be expecting me to say that I am, but lady, I’m still standing here trumpeting the commands! I am a real man! I am a real man, an armor: plated knight who is a slayer of fierce fire breathing dragons, with a mighty bam: a: lam!

Raziella: (rages) Shut up! We have no time for foolish whining and complaining! (zaps him with the control box) You’ll don that real man’s suit! (zaps him) You’ll buy those two rental houses! (zaps him) You’ll find a job with more resources! (zaps him) We have no time nor room for loungers and carousers! (rages) You WILL be a real man, because it is I who have made you so; and be damned if you can’t even tell your surintendant, Dr. Sam, I am! You know?

Stage lights gradually fade out

Stage lights gradually brighten

Nine o'clock that night..

Marion takes a bath, but the water strangely burns. He exits the tub, dries off, grabs his clothing. After his clothing is on, he bumps a seemingly empty plastic pill bottle on a medicine shelf, spilling something out on him. Already in distress, he exits the bathroom into the bedroom, never noticing

Enter Raziella

Raziella: My Lord, look at you! What is that covering you all over there? (moves closer up) Hmm, appears to be bugs, for heaven’s sake! Termites, to be specific! Lo, its wood termites love. How may they do only one of us any good? Nobody with termites on them is going to spend time in my home, let alone, sleep in my bed! Here! (huffs into the bathroom, grabs a bottle from the medicine shelf, pours contents into bathwater)

Marion: (enters bathroom, gasps) What on earth are you doing? You didn’t drain out the old bathwater?

Raziella: This is sulfuric acid. Some was already in that water, so it was clean when you got into it. Acid will kill those bugs on you, along with miscellaneous fungus and bacteria.

Marion: What! (gasps) That acid hurts when I dip into it! (screams, puppyish voice) I don’t want to get in that acid!

Raziella: You're going to do it! (rages, growls) Do it NOW!

Marion: I don’t want to get into that water! (steps down into the water ) I don’t want to get in that water! (sits down in it) I want to find a new kind of order! I hate doing all the time, that which I ought to!

Raziella: That’s right, my little boy! You’ll be a real man one day, yet! Get on down inside that water, now! Scrub yourself well with that rough sponge.

Stage lights gradually fade out

Stage lights gradually brighten

Three weeks later…

In the evening

Raziella opens three small windows in the house on three opposite sides, turns up the air conditioner

Marion: What are you doing with the air conditioner on, and the windows open?

Raziella: That's the only way the temperature might be adjusted perfectly.

Marion: But it's wasting power! Power is expensive.

Raziella: I manage the money in this house. (sighs) We have no worries.

Marion: I do, because I am the one working myself to death for this money!

Raziella: Hum! You’re in fine health, my real man. I see to that, as well. One flick of this magic control box knob, and honey, you’re all night long breaking it down right here, on the job. If I wanted it to be that way, you could turn me another fortune in sales! Aye, this golden electric fun might ne’er dare stop!

Marion: No, I’m not. I feel horrible! The doctor can find nothing wrong with me. I think it's those windows you raise up like you do all the time, and that air conditioner you run while you do. It makes mildew and mold, and it's killing me! The sickness from it is tough to identify.

Raziella: Did you go to the local wood workers shop? A true doctor can’t do much for a wooden boy anyway. What does he know? And you certainly are no medical doctor.

Marion: Stop saying I’m a boy! Stop calling me a toy! I’m not made of wood, but it's still flesh and bone, understood? I feel congested. All over I feel weak, ‘tis all I can do to eat or even sleep! At work I cough, I struggle and strain, ‘tis all I can do to earn my keep, much less whine or complain!

Raziella: Hmm, now let us take a quick glance at the numbers. (picks up folded papers from the dining table) You need to upgrade your labor income status. What is the next position up on the pay scale where you now are, that shall net us in enough thunder?

Marion: Facilities Supervisor, I believe. It's the highest paying position outside of being Head Master. I can perform this function as I continue being the Second Master, from morning: amber tequila: cherry dawn into peach: blush sky evening. (coughs, gags, struggles to breathe, strains to speak) I’ll move on this matter first thing tomorrow morning.

Stage lights gradually fade

Stage lights gradually brighten

Two months later..

At 0700 in the morning

Raziella: At long last my great estate and realm is complete! Now, it is me who is the envy of this entire Cypress Veil community! It is me who all of the school children now admire! It is me who for knowledge, the accomplished community greats all seek! Now it's me whose quality consultation demands what I’m paid by the hour! The palace has been acquired, the tenements now bought, the investment funds and insurance accounts that have been filled are all ours. Look at what my dynamic example has already taught! Who among any on the outside offering negative criticism, may now even dare to speak?

Marion: (whimpers) I know not on earth what is wrong with me. I can barely move. But still, off to work I must go. I have no alternative choice. No more negotiating voice. (hangs his head) Lo, I now beat my own head! (with his fist)I have foregone all secular joy. I most certainly know now, that all I am is a wooden, little boy toy.

Marion exits

Stage lights gradually fade out

Stage lights gradually brighten

Raziella is lounging on the couch, primping in a decorative hand held gothic mirror

At lunch telephone rings

Raziella: (answers phone) Hello?

Voice on phone (an attendant): Is this Mrs Raziella Gullivane?

Raziella: Yes it is. How may I help you?

Voice on phone: (official nasal monotone) Well, this is Cypress Veil Medical. The rescue personnel here received a call over to Iris Glade Elementary, maybe two and a half hours ago. Your husband, Mr Marion Gullivane, had just walked in from the county Board of Education. He collapsed face down, as he stepped across the entrance door to the principal's office.

Raziella: Oh my (gasps)! Is he alright now? I simply can’t imagine why! (astonished, gasp) Maybe this dreadful tale is all some sort of cruel, manipulative lie!

Voice on phone: (nasal monotone) No, I’m sorry ma’am. We lost him. We believe he may have been dead, or nearly so, on arrival, to be honest.

Raziella: Oh my gosh! (gasps) This is so unexpected and terrible. He was saying he felt poorly and was struggling to breathe. But this? (gasp) Oh my gosh! What on earth now? (weeps) I feel so faint and hot!

Voice on phone: (nasal monotone) I’m so sorry, Mrs Gullivane. All the people who knew him said he was such a hardworking, totally dedicated man, like no other ever seen there before, and will be greatly missed.

Stage lights gradually dim

Raziella exit

 

Act 4

Scene 5

 

In Nolan Plantation woods

At midnight, half moon

 

Enter Waubash, Jimbo

Carrying long guns

 

By the mansion ruins

Jimbo: (whispers) It should be near here, according to Crispin Hale Graham, the county bail bondsman..

Waubash: (whispers) It wouldn’t be out here in the open. (gazing out)

Jimbo: Naw, it's inside a great big hollow cypress tree, man.

Waubash: What did you say it was you wanted, now? Guide me straight on this matter.

Jimbo: We call it Sunshine, up in Detroit, where I was raised part of the time. It will be the best sunshine you ever had. I can tell you that much, Waubash.

Waubash: I’ve never heard of such, except that which will rise in a few hours more out here.

Jimbo: Well, it's like this. Up where I’m from, they call it Sunshine. Down here, everybody calls it Moonshine, but this sweet Sunshine is three times better than the best Moonshine, and it's damn sure better than rain. It's also officially called Honey crisp Jack. Graham picked up some not long ago when he traced a bail jumper up that way, and he stashed it inside this big hollow cypress tree near these ruins. I cut some rather revealing cards for his hand, in this bail bondsman’s game he plays, and he consequently, needed to compensate me for assisting him in his success; since his prey was holing: up in my home territory, eh?

Waubash: (sighs) That cypress tree has to be on, father back, next to the creek.

Jimbo: There is also a nice patch of ‘sang not far from it. Inside that tree there is also a nice bag of lune: blossom dust he collected from somewhere nearby. That stuff is better than money or gold around in these parts, man. With it, all things are fully possible. (muffled laugh)You, with your checkered reputation, could even become county manager. (laughs)

Waubash: There is a nice patch of ‘sang not so far away. I harvest in some, every now and again, simply to pull in extra money from time to time when I run low. I have no idea who claims it. It's strange that this Graham fellow you mentioned, would come in here to make any kind of stash. I didn’t think anybody would come back: in here. Strange things really do go on in these woods. We have big black panthers, bears, lions, not to mention Wampus Cats, for laughs. Then, the ghost of Beverly Clebern, the old time original mansion owner, gets up and he walks around, ever: now and again..

Jimbo: Yeah? Well, ole Mickey Val rents this place out. (smiles) You knew that, didn’t you? Then the infamous warden, Westley Ferguson, haunts the area a lot, so I’ve been told by people who know. They claim he’s a sly one.

Waubash: I knew Mickey Val rented this place. I’m not overly worried about him. He doesn’t strike me as being an overly intelligent man. I think, cuckold, might be the old word for him? (muffled laugh)He sure has been left wearing the horns enough times.

Jimbo: (smiles) Now please don’t tell me so. You aren't still running with rocking Robin, are you?

Waubash: Naw man. (muffled laugh)We quit our associations months ago now. I’m worn weary of the mount, frankly. That ole gallopin’ bronca is about as sick of me bumping with her, nearly nightly from every direction, I suppose. Who knows what that woman is doing now.

 Jimbo: (muffled laugh) I hear Mickey is hot after somebody, and I mean damned hot, man. (chuckles) A little looney dust on the palm reveals all secrets. I’ll actually think about you from time to time, man. (muffled chuckle)

Waubash: Hush! Stop.. (both pause, whispers ) The deer might come out here anytime now. Watch the grassy area there by the ruins.

A large watchful buck eases from the woods, out into the grassy patch. Both men raise their rifles, fire

Jimbo: (laughs, gasps) We put him down in an instant, did we not? What do ya think he’s worth?

Waubash: A good twelve hundred at the Creek rendezvous.

Jimbo: Where are they having it this year?

Waubash: Over at the old train depot in West Veil, so I’ve heard.. (startled, whispers) Hush now! Beware, ole hare! Take cover. I hear a rather bumblin’two: footed stir in the bushes ahead.

Vegetative cover suddenly breaks

Enter Mickey Val, Warden

Mickey Val: Oh my, oh my! What on earth have we both here, before my eyes? I’ve been a: huntin’ you for many a full moon now! (turns) Ain’t that right, Westley?

Warden (attendant): Awe yes! We both got ourselves a healthy double prize, and red handed at that! (sighs arrogantly, shakes head) I’ll be double damned!

Waubash: What are you talking about, red handed?

Warden: Don’t try to lie your way out of anything! We heard your gunshots. The deer lays right over there in the grass! Yeah, you both were thinking about that cape, weren't you? This is one cape the likes of either one of you’ll ne’er lay hand on!

Waubash: You’re crazy, man! We have no idea what you speak in regard to.

Mickey Val: Well, you son of a dog in heat! You would be the type who would stand there and try to lie your way out of something. I’ve got a beef with you on opposite grounds, personally. Indeed, I’ve been hunting you for many a: month! (chuckles arrogantly) You think you're so damn slick, don’t you?

Waubash: What are you talking about, Mickey?

Mickey Val: You’ve been out a: runnin’ with my ole lady for quite a while, haven’t you?

Waubash: (laughs)I have no idea what you speak of! I’m not with any old lady, to spell the truth about it, and most certainly not anybody else’s! When I am with one, I simply play a little hands on tag with ‘em, then let ‘em run along on their way. Life holds too many thrills otherwise, for me to become tied down. No harm at all is intended on my part, fellow.

Mickey Val: (bitter rage) I’ll show you something right now, pig! People like you need to be struck down by a serious bolt of lightning! (pulls his pistol suddenly, fires)

Waubash: (instinctively aims, fires his rifle, falls backward on ground, dead)

Jimbo: (roars in arage) Who do you think you are? Why the hell did you do that, man? You just can’t just gun a man down like that, fellow! Everybody in America has rights, you know?

Mickey Val: (covers a wound on left arm) You shut up! The sneakin’ pig had it comin’ to him for a long time now! On top of the fact that I have the rent on this place! Neither one of you filthy dogs, had no place out here tonight to begin with!

Jimbo: Who are you telling to shut up? You can burn in hell, for all I care! I saw what you did, and for no damn goodvreason!

Warden: (pulls his pistol, points it) I’m the one telling you to shut up now, because you’ll come along with me in irons and cuffs on this night. If Mickey hadn’t shot the son of a bitch down, I would have myself! I’ve been after him myself, virtually for years! He may be one of the biggest all ‘round criminals in these parts. This county has lost hundreds of thousands in tax money because of him. I’m out to catch every last one of his despicable kind in these parts, however I can. People like him take money out of my mouth, and every hard working, respectable person in this county, to speak the truth about it! That doesn’t even speak about the mothers and their impoverished kids who suffer. The dead pig wasn’t worth the lead it just took to kill him with! Now, however, tonight Mickey and I have cured a true community menace for good.

Jimbo: (points his rifle, backing up) Now understand this one thing right here, I’m not going with anybody anywhere, especially with cold blooded murderers like the both of you! I haven’t done any damn thing, to any: damn body! (backs into a run)

Warden: (sneers) But, you were his accomplice when he shot that deer laying in the grass back there! You’re coming along with me now, or else! (draws, fires his pistol)

Jimbo: (backing into a run, falls dead)

Stage lights gradually dim

Jimbo, Waubash, Mickey Val, Warden

Exit

Stage curtains fall

 

Act 5

Scene 1

Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia

Near the Mercer and Lawton Victorian Live Oak Arches

Underneath a black with Antique Gold accents, Cathedral: Peak Pavilion tent canopy, standing beside Marion’s open coffin over a freshly dug grave, surrounded in deep burgundy carnations

Light, slightly cool, early March wind, A distant rolling thunder

 

Enter Raziella, Lilith, Nixie, Hellen, Mora Ananke, seven attendants

Nixie Perdita: (viewing the corpse, wind tossed hair, well-aged black Serbon, floral embroidered, lace dress) Oh, one of such a withering warrior's essence, when superficial excellence is way too often there: in confused. One born into his mother’s exalted life, therein standing so tall, yet still predestined to plunge into a rough involuntary fall. But did you now remain? I perceive thy yet lingering, now quieted echo, cry out! Was it not the individual within you in spite of thine own senses, who then selected the proper fitting shoes?

Aye, poor sentinel of your own undoing, how high you climbed your way up, even when your negative destiny was showing! How quietly you slumber now, while a distant faint cotton market: exchange knell moans. I warned you once via close associate whispers sharp as winter air, but folly plays a much sweeter song than prudent caution ever sings. She wove you silken promises, threads spun from cupidity, not from love. You beheld the bewitching glitter, not the hexing beast, following her like a moth to a funeral torch above. She exchanged you, the sewage, after you cultivated her the alluring elysium flowers and illustrious Eden’s unhallowed fruit trees!

I witnessed you trade your hard: won iron for callous illusion, your sound reasoning in the warmth of her deceit. Every step you made was yours alone, yet you swore the path was a positive fate beneath your feet. Now infinite emasculated ruin rests upon your breast like positive accomplishment’s final diadem; and lo ‘tis I, who am the numinous matron of your unpublicised fall! Allow me to stand sentinel beside your mute aplomb, as the only witness remaining who knows how much in dedication to maintaining the illustrious highly publicised spectral illusion, you gave all.

Hellen: (viewing corpse, wears ankle length, Morticia Dress in Black, with face veil, hair is braided around head, adorned with a glittering stephane, calm but commanding expression) How pale you lie beneath my gaze, like a totally serene moon drowned in its own soft glow. Your devotion clung to you like winter ivy, tightening, so frightening.., until thy breath became a vanishing memory. You knelt before a heart made of poisonous thorns, whispering vows into a blood red mouth that never softened. In the dim corridors of your matrimony, you staggered about, wandering like a long lost ghost many years before the timeless reaper finally claimed you.

I, Hellen, retainer of oaths and sanctity, have witnessed centuries of love rot into obedience. But yours—yours was a cathedral of sorrow, a public display of excellence, built stone by stone from your own undoing.

Hear me now in this hush of extinguished candles: fidelity is not meant to be a tomb! Find eternal joy in recalling how much we both lived secular life to its fullest, before your baneful knot tie! No man is called to bleed for the echo of a promise, nor to worship at an altar that devours him. Yet still you stayed, a lantern trembling in a house of storms, a loyal shadow bound to a merciless flame. Rest now, child of dust. Let the infinite darkness envelop around you gently, softer than the life you clung to. May the underworld cradle what the living world consumes, and may your next dawn rise free of orchestrating chains.

Mora Ananke: (viewing corpse, wears a Lulis Stunning Arrival Black Satin Off: The: Shoulder Maxie Dress, hair is jet black with glitter, poised like a queen among queens)I was always there, even as the celestial law prevailed from the very first moment of your introduction, motivating you in spite of existing despair. Though you initially resisted, her incessant commands insisted. With those who know the true story, you were always afraid to assess.

Behold! You falsely told yourself you felt euphoria at the close of each and every day! Aye, thus you continued along upon this chosen way. Was all of this predestined? Could you have taken another path? If inside a rugged brave alternative you had doggedly persisted, maybe your soul could have languished inside a great warrior’s elysium blue lotus, tulip scented bath! Might your golden chalice have now been filled in a final glorious Luminaris salutation, with that long cherished ancient ambrosia Nectar of the Gods! Thus, inside your own character frailty, inevitable destiny prevailed.

Lilith: (viewing corpse, wears black evening ball gown with lace embroidery, hair is deep black with subtle sparkling blue, serenely calm and confident) Oh? (sighs) Here at long last, face to face now we finally meet. I, away from my orb of crystal, you, now, so pale and eternally still. Via crystal, I witnessed you in action, your unerring dedication. Why! For what? (shrugs) What subtle intention was your inner motivation?

Why, on and on incessantly, until finally ceased by your secular, bitter end? Yes! I’ll say it out loud, right here, to your very face as it is. You prostituted your own manhood and personal choice of direction, in lieu of some superficial accomplished appearance, for another’s ruthless assent, from destitution into astonishing excellence! Might it have been your own foolish passion: seeking folly that made you so blind? What, pray tell, were you attempting to net? You, on each night, now for all infinity, shall slumber inside this gloomy coffin; while she shall so easefully dream inside a moonlit, lemon: magnolia embraced chateau, so comfortably caressed in a midnight: blue velvet canopy bed!

I was subtly approached. (shrugs) ‘Twas I who hatched the shackling program. A somber, shrouded deal was then struck. Mine, for one mortal's soul and a mysterious, dedicated temporal love; hers, for a grand palace and a true fairy queen’s golden diadem. My new love was dispassionate, there only for his unhurried flesh: tethered convenience; yet an ancient, metaphysical, eventual, consequential curse had my back!

In reality, might it have been your own flesh: bound end that you actually sought? Yet inside this throbbing heart box, ( pulls a dark, preferably glitter covered, heart shaped box from an inside dress pocket) thine own soul I have now caught! Behold, there is no convenient sidestep! Yes, your involuntary mortal story shall find shadowy, netherling ears in Hades to tell, while I in exchange, shall acquire new veil: touched potency for sale.

Raziella: (views corpse, Alexander McQueen, black silk crepe dress, sleek, razor straight midnight black hair, gently tossed) I behold my horrible loss before me, that shall surely endure the forthcoming eons. Our love grew, upon being only a small seed at our initiation. You held the much needed fertility, I possessed the blossoming energy. I must say as your dedicated wife, you bore the commitment and the unwavering determination for constructing our most elegant, bedazzling kingdom! It absolutely could not have happened without you! Only you could have made that possible. There is no other you, nor shall there ever be. Nobody else lives who would do what it was you did, even if they could! I bitterly weep at the fact you are no longer with me to give my earnest thanks to.

Fare thee well, my love! (weeps) Fly high throughout the immortal skies of infinity. Soar those ethereal realms of endless travel and adventure like a celestial dove! Certainly here on earth below, my heart soars with you, where’er it is you choose to go. Maybe on one distant future day we can row our gentleman’s skiff pleasantly down the River Stix, or as to our reunited destination we might allow the elegant swans to make our pick. May excellence in all star: crowned endeavors, you soon find; (gasps, right hand o’er heart) from the bottom of my very heart, (slightly bows) I thank you dearly for your illustrious contributions as both a husband and an accomplished man, and for being all mine! (weeps)

Coffin is closed, Raziella continues weeping

Stage lights gradually dim

Raziella, Lilith, Nixie, Hellen, Mora Ananke, seven attendants exit

 

Act 5

Scene 2

July, month of veiled flame

Inside the Chateau de Heliotrope Hydrangea Hills

At the Grand Marrowgate Table

Enter Lilith, Raziella, County Manager, High Magistrate, the Earl, Grand Reeve, County Prefect, High Castellion, Chief Justice, County Regent, Selena, attendants

All are seated

 Butler (attendant) walks from person to person at the table, pouring deep rose red muscadine wine

Raziella: (stands, after others are seated, toasts) Welcome one, welcome all, into my grand enchanting kingdom on planet earth! As the archway title notes upon: entrance of Dogwood Blossom and Crepe Myrtle Avenue, Tulip Thaloria, by Lasandra Waters has been birthed into secular reality, at long last! (all arise, drink, clap, cheer, gradually take seats)

Everybody: (at table, hold goblets high) Long live the dryad queen! Hail to the magnanimous queen on Lasandra Waters!

Butler (attendant) walks from person to person pouring more wine

Raziella: ‘Twas I who blessed many among us with exotic gifts, as I struggled in the founding of this truly wondrous realm. Let it never be said that persistence fails, since fate has already somehow been mysteriously allocated out.

Everybody: (stands, claps, cheers) Long live the honorable queen and her most dedicated, loyal subjects! (goblets raise, tip back, all gradually take seats)

Raziella: (amid continuing cheers and ovation) Such is said among even the upper proletariat on far too many occasions! (cheers and ovation gradually cease, ) In sublime salutation to our great accomplishments, my fellow comrades, let us never say that our pathway forward on earth was ever easy. Through thick and thin, unerring determination and conviction always wins! At times, the grandiose struggle of life appeared as if it might actually win out, and though we may stagger backwards from cruel blows dealt out upon us periodically, we never totally fell, (gathering loudly cheers) let alone were we down for the count! (standing ovation)

All are gradually seated. Butler moves from person to person, pouring more wine

The Grand Reeve (attendant): (stands, faces Raziella) Allow it to be said, my fair lady, where my gratitude toward you shall ne’er shudder nor wane (gathering claps, toasts). Were it not for your gracious gifts of blood ruby, exquisite emerald, and pearl unto my cause, donated to the managing provincial king himself, my seat from day one, would have never been secure. Such preceded even the establishment of your divine kingdom on planet earth, in which we gathered are so blessed now to be seated herein. (upturns palms, spreads outward, turns slightly) Most assuredly, my fair lady, were it not for the strategic organization of your associations on my unworthy behalf, my place as Grand Reeve two years ago, might never have manifested. (seated gathering claps, cheers) As always, (bows) my radiant lady, allow thy most veiled desire across this entire provincial land, to be my forthright command. (toasts Raziella, takes seat)

Raziella: (seated, holds up crystal chalice, toasts)

The County Prefect (attendant): (stands, faces Raziella ) My personal salutation also is addressed unto you, my lady. (toasts, gathering cheers) ‘Twas you who so graciously tipped me when I needed it in earnest, considering my personal struggles at the time, and I kindly returned: favor by ensuring that the absolute best person we ever had in charge of the provincial academic school system, was none other than your late husband, Marion. (seated gathering claps) I knew well both of his parents and his mother's entire family. (seated gathering cheers) Let it never be said where good genes fail to beget better genes! (takes seat)

The County Regent: (attendant) (stands) As the provincial king’s loyalty goes, likewise is mine held in unerring total devotion. In order to have a more perfect realm, we all must consolidate into a single unified direction. Allow perfection in consistent order, always and forever more, to rule the day! (toasts Raziella, takes seat)

The High Magistrate (attendant): (stands, facing gathering) Allow me to support that resolute order. In doing so, I also make: proper address to the fair queen herself. (bows, turns to face Raziella) Allow it to be said on this very day, my dear queen, where nobody stands above the law. Not inside any court, not inside any veiled chamber; as are your subjects out on the streets, so rules the supreme law in all avenues.

Raziella: (stands) I shall always support every honest effort made, good sir, as long as the supreme entity beyond allows it to be so. May solid order reign inside every corner of the house, every garden grove, every barn and subterranean cellar, near and far! (toasts, takes seat, gathering claps and cheers)

The High Magistrate: (standing, faces Raziella) Was it not you, via your altruistic gifts, and or your most lofty connections, who motivated my position into its proper place? (bows, toasts Raziella) The astonishing charm found in your ways, my fair lady, shall most certainly always amaze me, as will all of those in possession of knowledge, therein! (gathering claps, cheers ongoing, takes seat)

Lilith: (stands, faces gathering) ‘Twas my plan that provided the mysterious glamour, alas, my elaborate finalizing organization who ruled the way. Those in need, provide the precious mana feed, and the return on one’s gift shall be tenfold, pressed down, shaken, overrunning, and blissfully perpetual. Allow this manifestation of Tulip Thaloria, by Lasandra Waters to stand ever more as indisputable testament to truth found both in my actions in deeds done, and in words spoken, rising high above baseless assumption and factual disregard . (seated gathering toast, cheer) After all, any motion afore, I witnessed via precognition, inside my crystal orb, then organized gracefully, accordingly! (turns, toasts Raziella, turns, toasts seated gathering who cheer, clap, takes seat)

All are seated. Butler moves person to person, filling wine goblets i.e. glasses. The County Manager rises.

All who are seated: (stand, raise glass goblets high, toast) Hail the great magnificent! Hail to the mighty king before us! To our sovereign, whose crown gleams like dawn upon these timeless stones. May the winds that circle these high towers carry his name to distant realms, and may the hearth‑fires of this chateau burn ever brighter beneath his gentle rule. Raise your cups to the King—may his reign flow like golden wine, rich with peace, deep with wisdom, and endless as the stars above!

County Manager (attendant): On the contrary, each and every one of my glorious totally dedicated subordinates! My personal hail is to all of you! (raises golden chalice high) Allow it to be said on this very moment and spot from which I presently stand at the far end of this illustrious table, ‘tis both myself and our wonderful queen ( slightly turns, points his opened left hand toward Raziella)who are held in perpetual bondage to your service, (gathering boisterously: cheers) never shall it be said, vice versa! (standing gathering cheers, on going) In eternal gratitude, allow both of us to toast all of you, and the further commencement of the day's proceedings! (Raziella, County Manager, raise full wine chalice high, toast amid excited cheers from gathering)

County Manager & Raziella

Exit stage arm in arm

Selena: (stands, cheers in backdrop, faces audience, holds wine goblet high) Allow grace, accomplishment, and tranquility to always enlighten our path forward! As the King and Queen exit this wonderful chateau mansion of Tulip Thaloria, by Lasandra Waters, to be transported away in the estate’s Mossglen swan: down Carriage on a thickly jasmine: scented midsummer zephyr, to regal, numinous Builtmoor Estate; allow an emanation of incessant peace and tranquility from the supreme being himself, to settle inside our minds, flowing forward into the precious life spring of our very hearts, forth from the celestial center of our souls themselves, for the duration of an empyrean infinity. (toasts to audience)

Swan Lake Waltz commences. All who are gathered now cheering, dance

Stage lights gradually dim

 Lilith, High Magistrate, the Earl, Grand Reeve, County Prefect, High Castellion, Chief Justice, County Regent, Selena, attendants, exit stage

Stage curtains fall

 

THE END

 About the author: H.L. Dowless is an American author, educator, and longtime writer whose work spans fiction, nonfiction, poetry, education, philosophy, and adventure. He has written for more than thirty years and has published books and stories through a variety of publishers, literary journals, and independent presses. His bibliography includes The Grand Army of the Golden Eagle, March of the Divine Magnificent, The Old Mill Pond Anthology, The Analytical Origin of Life on Planet Earth, and The Predator: A Thriller Short.

Dowless has also worked as an academic and international ESL instructor. His experiences in education contributed to several of his instructional publications. Outside writing and teaching, he has pursued outdoor and archaeological interests, including hunting, camping, fishing, trapping, and fieldwork in various locations.

His literary interests range widely, from Southern and outdoor life to history, mythology, philosophy, the supernatural, and the unconventional. His writing reflects a continuing interest in exploring unusual ideas, characters, places, and the boundaries between ordinary life and the fantastic.