Les Fantomes de la Luisiane

LES FANTÔMES DE LA LUISIANE

by Gary Indiana


The action takes place on the Island of Mestizo, off the coast of Louisiana.

SCENE ONE opens with the chirping of birds and the creaking noise of a swing-seat on the veranda of an antebellum mansion. We can also hear the winglike sound of an ivory fan as VERA DINSMOOR, a neuraesthenic and sultry young belle, deflects the humidity while reclining on the swing chair.

The veranda ceiling is liberally festooned with wind chimes, which generally tinkle faintly in an “Oriental” fashion, but create a horrific racket when a wind blows through.

The scattered notes of bird song builds in volume, as if more birds, dozens and quickly hundreds of birds, are all squalling at the same time. This continues until the sheer quantity of birdsong becomes menacing and ridiculous, then a single gunshot is heard and the bird sounds abruptly cease.

We now hear the rattle of ice cubes some distance from the creaking swing-seat as CORETTA KIERKEGAARD, the loyal family retainer, stirs a large pitcher of lemonade at a table. All the furniture on the veranda except the swing-seat is made of wicker, which squeaks whenever sat on.


VERA
(in a muzzy but tuneful voice)
Mayuhz eat oads and does eat oads
(trailing off with uncertainty)
an liddle clams with ivy…I’ll always
eat a clam, wouldn’t you….?

CORETTA
(emits a heavy sigh)

VERA
Coretta? I heard on the radio the Army Engineers is dammin' up
the river up at Ibis Parrish over on the
mainland. Doesn’t Pappadaddy re-ly on
that river for thuh irrigation of our cotton
holdin’s?

CORETTA
(pouring lemonade into a tall glass)
Miss Vera, only thing your Pappadaddy been
irrigatin’ for all the years I been around’s
your Pappadaddy hisself. Less you count
turnin' on the lawn sprinkler as irrigation.

VERA
Oh Coretta you know Pappadaddy frets so
prodigious about his health since they gave him
that barium enema examination he just has to
imbibe a little nip of an evenin’ to calm his nerves down.

CORETTA
Little nip’s one thing, it’s that tumblerful of Jack
Daniels first thing in the a.m.’s gonna turn your
daddy’s liver into funnel cake.

VERA
In your own colorful ethnic way Coretta you fret more than
Pappadaddy ever does over every little thing. Why
just the other afternoon I heard you drivin’ yoursef
half-lunatic over your buttermilk biscuits.

A long silence. Suddenly another influx of burgeoning birdsong, becoming a wave of variegated, deafening chirping. Another shotgun blast terminates the cacaphony.



VERA
I wish Daddy wouldn’t fire from the window so frequent.

CORETTA
You know somethin Vera, sometimes I think it’s true
when you say you are never getting up again. You just
want people to worry about you, is my opinion. So they
will all say you are buried in your thoughts.

VERA
Don’t torment me, Coretta. Bring me that nice tall
lemonade and be a sweetheart.

Steps on a gravel walkway.

VERA
Coretta, look who’s comin’!

CORETTA
I got eyes in my sockets same as you have Miss
Vera. Cep mine are a lot older and they see things
a wee bit different.

VERA
(stage whisper)
Ain't Charles the epitome of virility?

CORETTA
(less whispery)
If the pit o me means what I think it does I wouldn’t
endorse your view Vera but the pit o me ain't the pit o you.

The steps come closer, Charles’s footsteps mount the stairs to the veranda.

CHARLES
How do, Coretta?

CORETTA
Huh.

VERA
Bone jure, Charles. Did you realize this is the end of
the Romantic Era?

CHARLES
I just heard it over the radio. It’s the end of Four Skin River
up at Ibis Parrish also. Army Corps of Engineers dynamited
Boner Dam just this morning. They say the new hydroelectric
facility will be visible from outer space.

VERA
Who would have the faintest wish to look at a power plant from outer space? We can see that atomic plant over in Boskytown from here and it don't add any allure to the view. Anyway there ain’t nobody IN outer space.

CHARLES
In fairness to Governor Toadmasher and his followers,
Vera, we’d have to say the jury’s still out on that one.
Ready for the lighthouse?

Charles is heard settling in one of the wicker chairs. Coretta’s steps as she brings Vera lemonade and returns to the table to pour one for Charles.

CORETTA
(sharply)
Mister Charles Miss Vera cannot be goin’ to no
lighthouse today. It gonna rain.

VERA
(her voice becoming ever more unworldly)
I knew it I JUST KNEW IT there is always somethin,
some malevolent force or stroke of evil luck come along
like shit through a cane brake ruinin my ever chance of
happiness—

CHARLES
Now Vera don’t start, don’t get carried away—

CORETTA
Calm down Miss Vera you know what Doctor Mapplethorpe
told you—it just that there’s a storm blowin up from the
Gulf this particular day why any other day you can visit
that lighthouse where you been a million times already
anyway—

VERA
(dementedly)
Tandy! OH TANDY! Coretta, where is my precious
little Tandy run off to?

CORETTA
(aside, to Charles)
She’s startin in again.
(loudly, to Vera)
You know perfectly well Miss Vera your precious little
Tandy run off two months ago with Colonel Ambrewster’s
whippet bitch Octaroon. Them two will come sniffin they
way home when they get disengaged. Tragedy of it is—
(Coretta catches herself before completing her remark)
Next thing I know, you’ll be askin for another cushion and
I believe you already got every one of em out here where theys
about to get soaked.

Sound of Coretta plumping the cushions.

VERA
Now don’t be like that. Enjoin your lemonade Charles?

A brief passage of inappropriately dramatic music as Charles takes a long pull of his lemonade. We hear Coretta’s heavy steps
as she opens the house door and goes inside. Sound of Charles joining Vera on the swing chair.

CHARLES
(solemn)
Vera darlin, I’m afraid I have some rather unpropitious
news.

VERA
I’d hate to think that were so. How calm it’s become here
on Mestizo since…The Troubles.

CHARLES
It’s about your brother Frank.

VERA
What about my brother Frank? Charles, you say that as
if I had other brothers besides Frank and you know very
well that I don’t. At least none that I know about. Of course
I know Pappadaddy had his wanderin' ways and sown plenty of wild oats in his prime but Frank’s the only brother I’ve known. The only brother I’ve trusted. The only brother I’ve…that I’ve loved.

A pregnant silence follows this last statement. Charles finally clears his throat.

The house door opens again, we hear Coretta return to her post, replenishing the lemonade pitcher and rattling some metal objects on a platter.

CORETTA
Ice cold lemonade time! I brought you your pinkin shears
Vera, case you’re inspired to make some progress on that
fallow-lookin privet hedge.

VERA
That isn’t privet, Coretta. It’s box.

CORETTA
(walks to the swing chair, pours them more lemonade)
Think you know everything. (Pause) Brought you your hair-
brush case you want to straighten out your own hedge. Lyin’
down all day don’t exactly turn you into a Clairol girl.

Coretta stalks back to the refreshment table. A gust of wind agitates the veranda chimes.

CORETTA
(soliloquizing)
Sometimes I WISH Lurleen hadn’t been so prolific about hangin
those chimes all over creation. As if the birds waren’t bad enough. Those chimes have ALWAYS activated my proclivity to migraine.

CHARLES
(gravely)
We’ve combed the Territory.

VERA
How long have you been in Mestizo, Charles?

CHARLES
Let me think.

CORETTA
Oh Vera I wish like the dickens you’d rouse yoahself
offa that swingchair for FIVE minutes so I could give
them cushions a good shake. You know Mister Charles
the pollen, it just gravitates towards the veranda when
the atmosphere is as balmy as it is this afternoon.

VERA
I thought you were the one with hay fever, Coretta, not
myself.

CORETTA
Ain’t hay fever I got Vera I’d be grateful if it were. I’m afraid I’ll be gone with the wind before many more hay fever seasons coat this island with pollen.

VERA
Don’t say things like that, Coretta. You know you’re a rock of life.

CORETTA
I hear that Blarney Stone they got in Ireland’s a rock too, Vera, and you know what it’s famous for.

Again Coretta goes into the house. Sound of Vera fishing around behind the piled up cushions, sloshing of liquid in a bottle.

VERA
This lemonade could use a little vodka.

CHARLES
(still ruminating)
Five years since the Winthrop fortune went down the proverbial crapper, I reckon. That’s when I came here.



VERA
(pouring vodka into their glasses)
Ha! Then what can you possibly know about the secrets
of this place. For one thing Charles Mestizo is an island,
we don’t call it The Territory. And we call it the bathroom
rather than the crapper. And don’t tell me someone named
Crapper invented it because I already know that. It’s what
YOU don’t know about Mestizo we were discussin.

CHARLES
I know what I’ve picked up from the local gossips. Snips
and snails and puppy dog’s tails.

(An unfortunate choice of words)

VERA
TANDY! OH TANDY!

Coretta’s steps from inside approach the screen door.

CORETTA
Is she gonna start up with that again?

Coretta reemerges from the house. Sound of Vera brushing her hair.

VERA
You spoke of combin the island. And now I have to comb
my hair. Strange, isn’t it.

A jaunty step on the gravel, proceeding up to the veranda.

CORETTA
Why good day to you, Colonel Ambrewster!

COLONEL
Why Coretta Kierkegaard you’ve hardly aged a day since
infancy. Well, Vera, has Charles told you the latest word?

VERA
You mean…about Frank? He disappeared into the interior
lookin’ for my little dog.

CORETTA
Don’t think I don’t perceive that liquor bottle you got hidden
Vera.

COLONEL
Kind of early for vodka, Charles.

CHARLES
Never too early in the tropics, Colonel.

Colonel Ambrewster sits down heavily on a squeaky wicker chair.

COLONEL
Perhaps you’d be kind enough to pour me one in that case. (heavy sigh)

VERA
Bad news again, Colonel?

COLONEL
I’m afraid the answer is oui to that one.

VERA
But Coretta’s fixin you fried chicken, I just know how you
love it! And besides—

A blast of music from within the house—Callas singing “Tosca.”

VERA
Isn’t that Maria Callas?

The music volume sinks to an almost imperceptible level.

CHARLES
More trouble with the…tribespeople, Colonel?

COLONEL
(dismissive)
Oh, the tribespeople, Charles, you are quite a neophyte. The tribespeople never pay us no never mind. Problem's with that…cult, out on Bugry Peninsula. The Tildaswintonites or whatever they call themselves, runnin around bareass through the jungle, flauntin their freelovin ways in clear view of the aboriginals…young girls flashin their firm ripe melons at the tribal youths…if them fanatics start initiatin' a few into manhood before their ritual swine wrestling ordeal…come the day, we're either gonna run them off the island or have another insurrection on our hands.

VERA
(quietly)
Our blood-stained hands.

CHARLES
Hearin' this on such a lovely day seems so strange.

COLONEL
Gale's blowin up from the Gulf pretty quick Charles, lovely as it might seem to you. (Pensive) The jungle is full of strangeness. Sometimes those calla lillies seem to loom like Bengal tigers in my dreams.

VERA
Seems to me you'd have to ask Coretta about jungle strangeness, Colonel. Proud as she stands, she's lost nine children to its menacin' depths. At night, sometimes, she thinks she hears the youngest one, Unguentina, callin' her out to the savannah. Ask her to bring you a dry martini once upon a time and tell me her eyes aren't full of secret moisture. God, what that woman has had to endure in this livin hell.

A crackle of thunder rends the air. A suggestive jazz riff accompanies the sound of stiletto heels mounting the veranda steps. A jangle of cheap bracelets.

VERA
Well Maisie! Ain't this a good day!

Maisie's heels clatter here and there on the veranda.

MAISIE
Pas mal, Miss Vera. Don't you look resplendant in all your refinery!

CHARLES
(noisily rising from the swingchair)
Welcome back to Casa Neurotica, Maisie. You remember me,
I hope?

MAISIE
Not Charles Winthrop the Fourth!

CHARLES
I'm afraid so.

Maisie's heels click in a beeline for Colonel Ambrewster. We hear her throwing herself in his lap, the groan of the chair, the groan of Colonel Ambrewster.

MAISIE
But good grief lemme kiss the Colonel. I haven't had a glimpse of you in a coon's age.

Coretta, coming again through the swing door, coughs.

MAISIE
With your indulgence, Coretta.

The swish of a riding crop, energetic steps from interior, swing door noise, sound of LURLEEN striding manfully from inside.

LURLEEN
If it isn't Maisie Mencken as I live and breathe.

VERA
Lurleen! How come you are out of bed?

LURLEEN
Rather be out of bed than out of business, Vera. I think that dizzy spell had more of my cough medicine to it than iron deficiency anemia.

COLONEL
Why Lurleen everybody knows you're made of iron, they ain't no deficiency in that department.

LURLEEN
Anyways Vera I heard you hummin' those mysterious melodies this morning and I believe my indecent curiosity has rejuvenated me to a scandalous degree.

VERA
Coretta believes it is going to rain, Lurleen, if you can credit that with any kind of verisimilitude.

LURLEEN
Mais, c'est pas difficile, Vera. Le ciel est tres grave.

VERA
Parce-que mon coeur est fixe sur le phare.

MAISIE
Well, Charles, you are one happy sight for sore eyes I didn't expect to set my orbs on this overcast afternoon. Tout va bien?


CHARLES
Naturellement, Maisie. How's the cockfightin' been in Cuernevaca this season?

MAISIE
Oh, I try to keep my hand in, as you know.

LURLEEN
Coretta? Would you like to add your pensees to this charmin' menage or would you care to fix a couple more lemonades for our delightful guests?

Sound of Coretta carrying the depleted pitcher into the house.

LURLEEN
She looks so stricken lately. It's almost as if she were harborin' some dread presentiment locked away in the back cupboard of her imagination.

COLONEL
Lurleen. Tell me it isn't true that Lucky's selling Casa Neurotica.

VERA
What a cunnin' dress you're wearin' Maisie. Is it a Mexican original?

MAISIE
Far from it, Vera. I picked up a few things in Mexico but this dress wasn't one of them.

A long silence. Coretta comes bustling back out with more lemonade.

MAISIE
Vera? Encore de lemonade?

CORETTA
(pouring)
Weatherman says rain, Miss Vera. So much for your lighthouse expedition.

COLONEL
I see you're avoidin' my query, Lurleen.

LURLEEN
(long sigh)
I'm afraid the truth leaps out at us like real toads in jardins imaginaires, Colonel. Ever since Frank's abrupt and inexplicable disappearance Lucky has insisted we strike out for greener pastures and I'm not completely altogether convinced he's wrong. (Pause) Either.

VERA
Colonel Ambrewster, how DO you really feel about the Army Corps of Engineers terminatin' the river up at Ibis Parrish over on the mainland?

COLONEL
I'm at a loss for words. Used to do a fair time of trout fishin' up in Four Skin River. Ever place those Army Engineers throw up a dam you get a wasteland of alewifes six months later.

VERA
And, guess what, Maisie.

MAISIE
I give up.

VERA
(insinuatingly)
Oh, you know what. About you know who.

MAISIE
(catching on)
Not really!

VERA
Uh-huh.




MAISIE
You mean--

LURLEEN
What on god's green earth are you two gossipin' about?


SCENE TWO. The dripping aftermath of a torrential rain plinking on the tin roof of a semi-enclosed barbecue patio on the far side of the house. Closer sound of seething oil and Coretta dipping chicken pieces into a slurping bowl of beaten eggs, pounding them in a platter of flour. Heavy footfalls approach.

BUCK
Afternoon, Coretta.

His voice close to her heavy breathing. Sound of the fabric of her dress being mauled, Coretta struggling out of his embrace with a vexed grumble.

CORETTA
Howdy there, Buck.

BUCK
I hear that familiar chorus of redneck voices emanatin' from the veranda.

CORETTA
(hardly listening)
You know how it is, Buck.


BUCK
How come you think those crackers wanna live in Mestizo in the first place? There's nothin here for the likes of them.

CORETTA
I wouldn't say that. There's the Bon Marche.

BUCK
The Bon Marche is just a department store, Coretta. It doesn't really mean anything.

CORETTA
Guess you're right about that, Buck. The way you tell it, you're right about everything.

BUCK
Hell, Coretta, I ain't no egghead but any moron can put two and two together.

CORETTA
I don't know, Buck. I've known one or two morons who couldn't.

BUCK
Like Frank?

An ominous organ note as Coretta wheels furiously on Buck.

CORETTA
What do you know about Frank? About me and Frank I mean?

BUCK
Nothin but what everybody in Mestizo knows. How frank adored you. How Frank was always undressin you with his eyes, always whisperin things at you under that boozy breath a his, 'Coretta baby, Coretta honey…'

Sound a sharp metal object scraping across a marble cutting board.

CORETTA
You shut your everlovin trap Buck Nichols or I'll shut it for you.

BUCK
(serenely)
That's an oyster opener, Coretta, you wanna shut it you better get yosself an oyster closer. Anyway it's true, isn't it?

CORETTA
The truth is like glue, Buck Nichols. Don't go runnin it through yoah fingers or you might get stuck in it. For instance where's that machete of yours you always used to be draggin around with?

BUCK
(a bit nervous)
Why, I'm havin the dents pounded out of it by the village smithy. Under the spreadin chestnut tree.

CORETTA
You couldn't fool your mama with that one, Buck. Try again. You barkin up the wrong tree. Can't pull the wool over my eyes!

BUCK
Do you ever say anything original?

Sound of Coretta and Buck rushing into each other's arms.

CORETTA
Oh Mother of God, Buck, I loves you.

Vera's voice comes piercingly from a distance.

VERA
CORETTA!

CORETTA
Merdey merdey it's Miss Vera. A idea musta popped itself into her head.

BUCK
Miss Vera sure be full of ideas.

CORETTA
Fulla ragin hormones and Tennessee Williams if you ask me. Course I ain't no theater critic but Miss Vera do wax histrionic at the most unfortunate moments. You best run along Buck if you know what's good for you.

Sound of Buck's retreating, rapid footfalls.

CORETTA
(to herself)
Not that you ever did.


SCENE THREE

Maisie and Charles alone on the veranda. An auditory tirade of cicadas.

MAISIE
Strange to find you here so soon after The Troubles, Charles.

CHARLES
I guess my heart's in Mestizo, Maisie.

MAISIE
And you bank account, is it still in Geneva?

CHARLES
Why the sudden sarcasm?

MAISIE
I'm sure I have no idea. And how does the future look? For you and Vera, I mean?

CHARLES
Well, I--

Noisy entrance of Lurleen.

MAISIE
Lurleen, what a creative outfit! May I ask for the address of your couturier?

LURLEEN
Ha ha ha Maisie, always a ready tongue. Charles, I'm afraid your bath's gone tepid. Coretta's drawin you a fresh one.

CHARLES
Guess I have a habit of malingerin on the veranda.

LURLEEN
Like the pollen, I suspect. Now, don't dismay Coretta any further. Go have a scrub. Maisie and I have…girl talk.

Charles steps to the screen door.

CHARLES
Righto. Hope you haven't altered the cocktail hour!

We hear him enter the house, footsteps going up the marble stairs inside.

LURLEEN
Since when did you ever wait for it, darlin.


MAISIE
Charles is lookin hale.

LURLEEN
More than hale, I would've said. But then I've always been one to speak as I mean.

MAISIE
Lurleeen, level with me. Is Vera and Charles--what I mean is--is Charles and Vera--

LURLEEN
Ask yourself that question, Maisie, not me. Consult the oracle of
Your mind's eye.

MAISIE
Because I'd never dream of causin any…difficulties.

Coretta makes her own noising entrance with a vacuum cleaner.

LURLEEN
Of course not. There you are Coretta, you slippery eel! Was that Buck Nichols I glimpsed exudin from the pantry?

CORETTA
(turns off the deafening vacuum cleaner)
And what of it if it was, Lurleen, Buck Nichols never occasioned any mishap here on the premises.

LURLEEN
I guess we're forgettin the little spill Cousin Bluehog took a year ago All Saints Day next to the barbecue pit or are we not, Coretta Kierkegaard?

CORETTA
Castin the rough stone of my memory over the still waters of your own, Lurleen, I recollect Cousin Bluehog had imbibed on that occasion a full fifth of Canadian Mist, whereon he flung his queer self on Buck Nichols's prostated form and subsequently got what was comin to him in more ways than one.

MAISIE
Sharp as a porcupine, Coretta always was and always will be.

LURLEEN
May that as it were, Buck Nichols has always spelled trouble by his presence or his suggestive insinuations.

MAISIE
Oh, Buck ain't no harm, Lurleen. At least I always found him obligin.

LURLEEN
So the legend goes, Maisie.

MAISIE
(changing subject)
Lurleen, how DO you get chrysamths to grow so prolific in this latitutude, it's beyond my ken altogether.

LURLEEN
Actually Coretta's the green thumb around Casa Neurotica. As we are all gratefully aware.

CORETTA
Merci Madame.

MAISIE
I haven't seen Lucky up and about.

LURLEEN
You will, dear, probably long before you desire. Now, come on out to my greenhouse and take a gander and what I like to call my fleurs du mal.

Sounds of Maisie and Lurleen going off. Chimes, of a more intime, Chinese restaurant sort of desuetude. An old wind-up Victrola can be heard being cranked at one corner of the veranda, an old style needle applied to a wax disk recording of Sophie Tucker singing, "Some of These Days, You'll Miss Me," as we hear Vera and the Colonel enter from the house.

COLONEL
Still thinkin about Frank?

VERA
I can't help myself.

COLONEL
How bout a rubber of bridge after dinner?

VERA
All right. Hope you're in a fried chicken mood.

COLONEL
Any time's the right time for fried chicken.

VERA
(wanly)
I guess you could say that.

COLONEL
And you, Vera? Aren't you feelin just a wee bit abandoned with Tandy and Frank both missin and all of sudden Maisie Mencken turnin up like a bad penny on a clear day?

VERA
You've got all the answers, Colonel.

COLONEL
The old questions, the old answers. There's nothin like them!

VERA
You weren't here durin' the Troubles, were you.

COLONEL
Are you kiddin me Vera? The Macumba would've killed me.

VERA
Mayhaps. We had our hands full. It might interest you to know it was Frank who intervened with the Macumba.

COLONEL
Why would that surprise me?

VERA
I didn't say it would surprise you. I said it might interest you. If it doesn't, we can talk about somethin else.

COLONEL
I guess you're thinkin I'm kind of a fair weather friend.

VERA
Give yourself a little credit, Colonel. We all know how you managed the October Truce under the last regime. A mind capable of that is capable of anything.

COLONEL
I can see it's time for my nap, Vera. (Pause) And Vera…don't torture yourself. It's duplication of labor.


SCENE FOUR. Inside the house, a parlor. Maisie is heard rifling through some drawers in a chiffonier. Buck comes noisily into the room.

MAISIE
Why, Buck!

BUCK
Evenin Miss Maisie.

A note of suggestiveness becomes steadily more obvious.

MAISIE
Long time…no see.

BUCK
That's one way of lookin at it.

MAISIE
Good gracious Buck you look feverish. Lemme feel your…forehead.

The voices grow closer.

BUCK
Suit yourself, Miss Maisie.

MAISIE
My name ain't Miss, Buck. My lord you're burning up! You better lay down this here couch before you fall down!

We hear Maisie flopping down on the couch before pulling Buck on top of her. Sound of Coretta entering.

CORETTA
Why Miss Maisie.

Maisie is heard flipping Buck onto the floor as she staggers to a standing position.

MAISIE
Coretta! What a surprise! I was just helpin Buck Nichols rest himself down, he's experiencin' a stroke of fever by the look and feel of it.

CORETTA
Sure looks like you're doin a good job of lookin and feelin. Maybe I better call Doc Mapplethorpe in if Buck's burnin up.

Lurleen's signature swaggering entrance.

LURLEEN
WHAT'S ALL THIS???

CORETTA
Buck Nichols with a touch of turista, Miss Lurleen, at least accordin to Miss Maisie here.

LURLEEN
Coretta, git me a hot rag.

CORETTA
One hot rag, comin right up!


SCENE FOUR. Another room in the house.




CHARLES
Well, here we are.

A long, unnaturally long silence.

VERA
It's easy for you to say that.

Another protracted silence.

CHARLES
At least we have each other, Vera.

Again, long pause.

VERA
That's right.

A loud gong sounds. Lucky, the decrepit master of the house, comes stumping in on his aluminum walker.

LUCKY
(throatily)
Autumn of the patriarch!

VERA
Father! Up from your bed of pain?

LUCKY
I'm not feelin half so debilitated as last week. Perhaps in the fullness of time I'll regain my old vigor.

VERA
Father you remember Charles.

LUCKY
Not really. Memory's goin.

CHARLES
I hope you won't mind me sayin you're lookin awful fit.

LUCKY
Say whatever you like. My hearin ain't so acute as it was neither.

Coretta sweeps into the room, encumbered by the vacuum cleaner attachments.

CORETTA
Now I'm mad!

VERA
Oh, Coretta. Don't commence.

LUCKY
Don't get started Coretta you'll drive me straight back to the catacombs.

VERA
(to Charles)
Daddy's little joke.

CHARLES
(equally soft)
Just so.

Lurleen reenters with much fanfare, her steps followed by the Colonel's.

LURLEEN
Lucky! I thought you were moribund!

LUCKY
Not at all, Lurleen. Well well. Colonel Ambrewster. The gang's all here by the looks of things. All this punch needs is Maisie Mencken to spike things up!

Stiletto heels enter the room.

MAISIE
YOO HOO!!!


SCENE FIVE. Coretta and Buck once again on the veranda, as the family and their guests make a great deal of noise inside: loud peals of laughter, someone attempting successive, bad renditions of songs from the 1940s on an out-of-tune piano, clinking of glasses, etc. On the veranda, the mild but occasionally turbulent tinkling of Lurleen's myriad chimes, croaking of bullfrogs in a nearby pond, the noctural chirping of crickets.

CORETTA
After all we been to each other Buck. I coulda died.

BUCK
A man's a man, Coretta.

CORETTA
Oh, booshit.

Vera screams from inside:

VERA
CORETTA!

CORETTA
Buck Nichols come clean. I ain't in this for the money.

BUCK
Corettta, if that little bit of fluff woulda gone any further, I woulda quit.

CORETA
Oh, hell, Buck, that ain't what I care about.

BUCK
Then why you getting so riled?

CORETA
Because! That Miss Maisie! You know dam well, Buck, she got her ways.

BUCK
An' you think I be such a fool? Is that it?

CORETTA
Ain't nobody callin' you a fool, Buck Nichols, although God only knows why not. Why is it a man only got to get within sniffin distance…

BUCK
You're peggin' me wrong, Coretta, you believe that.

CORETTA
(bitterly)
It ain't you. It's all men.


SCENE SIX. Inside the house. The Colonel and Charles are playing billiards: we hear the click and roll of billard balls on the baize, one or the other rubbing chalk on the point of his cue stick.

COLONEL
You've got me outnumbered vis-à-vis billiards, that's a dead ringer, Charles.

CHARLES
I brought some snapshots of Venezuela, if that interests you at all. (Pause) Got some nice views of Angel Falls. They say it's the most majestic spillway in the world and it's right at the mouth of the Amazon. (Pause) And I got one on my telephone camera of Hugo Chavez at a outdoor rally.

COLONEL
(coughing briefly on his cigar)
Charles, let me ask you something straight out flat that's been gnawing at the back of my mind.




CHARLES
Go right ahead, Colonel, I'd hate to see some type of brain-drippin bloody orifice under your pith helmet every time you turned around.

COLONEL
This ain't an easy thing for me to ask, Charles, so bear with me…You ain't got any communist type of tendencies, do you Charles? Any notion about nationalizin' Lucky's holdin's here on Mestizo? Or any inclination towards the animistic belief systems such as they say is true of those Tildaswintonites out on Bugry Peninsula? Because if you DO marry Vera, and what with her fragile mentality I'm afraid she'd easily fall in with some kinda cult--I'm afraid she'd end up like them poor jigaboos down in Jonestown.

CHARLES
Let me baste up that incipient hole in youah head tighter than a turkey's asshole on Thanksgivin', Colonel Ambrewster. I don't even favor the WORD communism bein uttered within my range of motion, Colonel Ambrewster. I'd swear that on the Winthrop Family King James if we hadn't had to sell it in a yard sale. And's far as those Tildaswintonites go--why, I'd like to see ever dam one of em drawnin quartid by slow movin cattle in the public square. I mean if we had a public square on Mestizo.

COLONEL
You pick up my meanin perfectly Charles. You're a man, sort of. But Vera, she's as delicate as a little porslin doll in a faded crinoline. You know the kind I mean, with them hauntin, starin glass eyes and them lips red as a vampire's kiss. Why, Vera's more innocent than Farley Granger in Strangers on a Train.





CHARLES
I think we been kind of misjudgin each other, Colonel. Here I been thinkin that you yessef are some type of left-leanin' liberal, what with that human rights organization you belong to.

COLONEL
I'm kind of an existentialist in these situations. Sometimes a person's gotta sing that old song of expedience to survive in these latitudes. Besides Charles laugh if you must, I gotta soft spot for this island's dwindlin' population of chimpanzees, call me sentimental if you must.

CHARLES
Ha ha ha. You can't mean it. Next thing you'll be sayin' we homo sapiens is descended from them verminous primates. You caint be serious.

COLONEL
Maybe I can't. Now that's another thing's been bugrin' me Charles you mentioned "homo"--

Vera enters: perhaps she has some signature, neurotic theme music to mark her arrival in various locations.

COLONEL
Vera! What a surprise! That dress o yours is stunnin!

VERA
I should think so.

COLONEL
Dollars to donuts that's an Azzedine Alaia! You're like Early Halloween. And I mean that as a compliment.

VERA
I'm tortured at night, Colonel. I imagine that's why. As for this glorified do-rag I'm wearin', it's a copy.




CHARLES
Just listen to those crickets.

VERA
Looks like you came at just the right time.

COLONEL
Why Vera, you have blue eyes.

VERA
Look again, Colonel. Maybe you gentlemen should dress for dinner.

The men depart. Lucky stumps in on his walker and a racking cough keeps him from speaking for an unnaturally long time.

LUCKY
All by your lonesome Vera? Why the long face?

VERA
Father! I thought you was helpin' Coretta eviskerate the chickens for our petit dejeuner.

LUCKY
We ain't eatin' em for breakfast Vera. You know Vera you've always had a special gift for changin the subject.

VERA
It's Frank, Father. I can't believe he's…you know, dead.

LUCKY
I feel the same way you do. Why, he's the only son I'm aware of. The only son I ever gave my name to. The only pure Caucasian ever sprang from these witherin loins.

VERA
Where'd you ever get that garish tie, Father.

LUCKY
I'm not wearin any tie, Vera.

VERA
Now look who's changin' the subject! Let's mosey together out to the parlor.

As the billiard room doors are thrown open, the atmosphere is flooded with gramophone music and the sparkle of bright voices, the popping of champagne corks, gaity and the sounds of the family and guests enjoying a carefree evening.

LURLEEN
Oh there you are Vera. Have you seen my cigarette holder?

VERA
Lurleen! What a fabulous bracelet! Wherever did you find it?

MAISIE
A glass of water, anyone?

LURLEEN
May-see those pearls!

CHARLES
(bursting in from another door)
I say, does anyone have a light?

VERA
I adorah your cufflinks, Charles!

CORETTA
(entering)
Chicken's almost ready!

COLONEL
When was this photograph on the mantlepiece taken?

MAISIE
Why, Lucky, you've had this clock fixed.

VERA
Lurleen, what is that perfume you're wearin?

LUCKY
Smell that chicken. Coretta really can cook, can't she!

LURLEEN
Oh, the fragrance of those magnolias is just like to overwhelm me.

COLONEL
The leather of this chair smells like brand new!

Sound of a match striking.

LURLEEN
Lucky I can't bear the aroma of those cigars of yours.

MAISIE
How's that water taste, Lurleen?

VERA
I hope she doesn't oversalt that chicken!

Maisie is heard settling on the sofa.

MAISIE
Feel these cushions, Charles!

Sound of Lurleen's hand running down the sleeve of Vera's dress.

LURLEEN
This silk is so smooth!

VERA
Yoah hair looks really luxurious.

LUCKY
Looks like rain!

MAISIE
Vera, go look at yourself in the mirror.

LURLEEN
How do I look?

Sound fades and comes up in the kitchen.

CORETTA
Stop lookin at me sideways, Buck Nichols.

BUCK
(pawing her)
Coretta baby I needs you.

CORETTA
I heard that one before.

BUCK
Coretta honey, I wants you.

CORETTA
Your subject ain't agreein' with your verb, mister.

BUCK
Coretta darlin, I loves you.

CORETTA
I got chicken to fry.

BUCK
Is that all you can think of?

CORETTA
I hear what you say and I see what you do and they ain't identical by any stretch of my imagination in my mind.




BUCK
Shee-it, Coretta, you still flippin' out about that dam dizzy Maisie Mencken?

CORETTA
The way she twitches that itty bitty behind around you. Them painted lips and them painted eyes. She be slippin' you the old ring around the maypole you give her one half a chance.

BUCK
Why, the green eyes of jealousy is poppin' out of your cranium, Coretta Kierkegaard, or my name ain't Buck Nichols.

CORETTA
Ditto again right there, on account of your name AIN'T Buck Nichols.

BUCK
And I ast you never to bring that up again.

CORETTA
And I ast you to keep yoahsef offa strange allurin females that are guests of my employers for two good reasons, (A), it ain't heppin me on my job, and (B), if I am your woman and you are my man, it ain't right. Course otherwise you can go piss up a rope for all I give a damn. Now get out from underfoot, I got a family to feed.





SCENE SIX. Postprandial noises on the veranda. Sounds of entirely new species of wildlife in the distance. Lucky is planted on the swingchair, creaking mightily, Charles pacing, then taking a seat on one of the wicker arm chairs.

CHARLES
That was one hell of a chicken feed, Lucky.

LUCKY
Mighty glad you liked it, Charles. Now, let's talk turkey. As you know, what with Frank missing and all, Vera receives half the plantation in trust and shares to four thousand acres of the richest cotton acreage west of the Valley Nile. Once I cash in my coupons--and I doubt if Lurleen will predecease me, her bein so robust--this estate passes to her, and after her demise the whole kit and kaboodle becomes Vera's. I'm talkin big bucks here Charles. Martha Stewart pillowcases and sheets, Pratesi triple weave, the type of raw material dreams are made of. So naturally you figure in as a kind of outside factor.

CHARLES
I love Vera, Lucky.

LUCKY
Why of coase you do, Charles. Why, just to know Vera is to love her, more or less. She may have bazoons as big as the Ritz and a fanny like the raise a zombie from the tomb, but to me she's still just my little baby girl…I remember how I used to bounce them firm little peaches on my knees, just like this…God how she loved it. Maybe someday you'll be a father youssef, course that depends on sperm count more than hereditary efflourescence, and than you'll understand…how strong that love can be for a little baby girl like Vera was…them smoky bedroom eyes gazin up at me with all the trust and polymorphous curiosity in the world, and them little lips so allurin and infantile and at the same time somehow as knowin and sexy as a full grown woman…there's a mighty special feelin when a man has got his own daughter bouncin on his lap, a kind a premonition what kind of woman she'd make a husband…that was the kind a feelin there was between me and Vera, Charles. Don't ever forget once you two get hitched, she's mine, too, in a special way you'll never fathom.








SCENE SEVEN. A dream sequence of sorts: we hear the sound of a train, its whistle, the clop of Vera's heels running in pursuit of it as a suitcase stuffed with her belongings flops open, and various small porcelain and glass figures smash against the train platform.

VERA
Frank! Frank! Oh Frank come back! Don't leave me, Frank!

The loud barking of a dog commences.

VERA
Oh Tandy! Tandy! Not you on top of everything!

Crescendo of noise.

VERA
Tandy! Frank! Tandy! Frank! Frank! Frank! Tandy! Tandy!





SCENE EIGHT

A psychiatrist's office. Lucky's aluminum walker scrapes across the floor as Dr. Manning murmurs over the telephone to his receptionist. Sound of Manning rummaging through Vera's chart.

MANNING
I'm afraid your daughter's case is pretty complicated, Major Dinsmoor.

LUCKY
But I'm not Major Dinsmoor, Doctor Manning. I'm his brother, Lucky. Lucky Dinsmoor.

MANNING
Not any more, I'm afraid. You see…(contemplatively) Vera is suffering--Lucky--from a subacute primal neurosis.

LUCKY
Just give me a general overview, Manning, I haven't got long to live.

MANNING
I'm sorry to hear that. What's the trouble? Heart?

LUCKY
Heart, neoplasm of the kidneys, chronic renal shutdown, glaucoma, cirrhosis, variosities of various sorts.

MANNING
Curious that they call you Lucky in that case.

LUCKY
Lucky I'm not already dead, maybe that's it. But hell, Manning, we're here to talk about Vera, not to kick around my immanent disintegration.

MANNING
In layman's terms, Vera blames herself for the disappearance of her dog.

LUCKY
What about Frank?

MANNING
Frank isn't a patient of mine, so I couldn't say. But I'm no stranger to collective guilt. These things tend to affect the entire family.

LUCKY
That isn't what I meant.

MANNING
Ha ha, don't worry yourself Lucky, I'm not about to start psychoanalyzing you. I'm not getting paid for it.

LUCKY
The idea never crossed my mind.

MANNING
I'm glad to hear it. You'd be surprised how many patients' relatives turn up in my office trying to get more bang for their buck by unveiling their own mental disorders.

LUCKY
I only want what's best for Vera. She's the only child I've got left.

MANNING
What about Frank?

LUCKY
Well, after all these months, let's face it--

MANNING
Then you have reason to believe that Frank is--

LUCKY
Go ahead, Doctor, say it.

MANNING
What I mean is, you have reason to think that Frank is--

LUCKY
I've never been one to flinch with reality starin me right in the kisser, Manning.

MANNING
In other words, you believe--

LUCKY
It don't matter what I believe, it's what happens next to Vera I'm worried about.

(long pause)

MANNING
Moo goo gai pan.

LUCKY
I beg your pardon?

MANNING
Oh, just thinking about lunch, Lucky. Well, don't give yourself a conniption, I'll have Vera back mixing mint julips in no time, Dinsmoor. The first step for the family, the way I see it, is for you and Lurleen and the whole crew to take a little vacation. Barbados, or Guatemala. Get some new pictures into Vera's brain. Maybe buy another dog while you're at it.

LUCKY
(confused)
Well…thanks, Doctor Manning.

MANNING
Think nothing of it!

A loud dog's barking as the scene closes.


SCENE EIGHT
An Antillaise barroom in Santo Domingo. Samba music, sounds of dancing feet, a general whoop-de-do ambience.

MAISIE
This is more like it!

LURLEEN
I know Lucky perked up right as soon as we got here! Coretta, take off some clothes, for Pete's sake!

VERA
I caint find my bathin cap.

CHARLES
Don't you just adore the tarantulas in this here terrarium? Look at that one ensorcellin a bluefly into his sinister web.

COLONEL
I feel like another one of them martinis with a prune in it.

CHARLES
You seem pensive tonight, Maisie.

LUCKY
Hey, you know what?

LURLEEN
I'll be damned. Lookit that bartender, he's the spittin image of
One-Eyed Rufus back in Mestizo.

MAISIE
I do, don't I Charles. That's what I mean about you. The way you pick up on how other people feel and not just on yourself.

COLONEL
I got one for you, Vera. Okay, these two morons go to the big city for the first time.

LUCKY
Let's rent a motorboat!

CHARLES
That's called creative empathy, Maisie. The world would be a better place if more people had it.

MAISIE
Not really. Shall we dance?

COLONEL
They get off the bus, and the first moron says to the second moron--

LURLEEN
I feel like a little more gin, Lucky, can you believe it?



LUCKY
It's my favorite ocean, the Caribbean--

MAISIE
Oh my Charles, Vera's lookin daggers at me. Maybe I oughta choose a different dancin partner.

CHARLES
Forget about Vera for one night, Maisie. She's in another world since Dr. Manning put her on that new medication.

VERA
I'd sure like to know where that bathin cap run off to.

COLONEL
But you aint listenin, that's the whole joke right there!

Another part of the barroom: Buck and Coretta in hushed colloquy.

CORETTA
You sure I should be doin this?

BUCK
Trust me, it'll spark up the party.

CORETTA
Last person trusted you ain't been spotted in over two months.

BUCK
Frank? Frank never trusted me. Frank only treated me like I was dirt under his feet. Buck do this. Buck go fetch that. Buck clean off this here toilet seat for I have a place to situate my posterior hindquarters. It was like havin a dentist drill borin away at my nerve ends day in day out like some kinda awful meat grinder, till one day I couldn't stand it another micro-fraction of a instant--

CORETTA
And is that why you gone and killed him, Buck? Is that why?

BUCK
Hell's bells Coretta, I never killed nobody.

CORETTA
I believes you Buck. Fool that I am. Now what am I supposed to put in this Kool-Aid?

Audible switch to the larger bar, the dance floor.

COLONEL
Lurleen, I just want you to know--

LURLEEN
Want me to know what, exactly?

COLONEL
Want you to know--well, that if Lucky ever steps out of the picture--I mean, we all know he's not the world's hardiest physiological specimen--

LURLEEN
You talk about him as though he were some type of a laboratory animal.

COLONEL
In a sense, Lurleen, that's what all of us are in this big Skinner Box called livin'. We're all just pressin buttons on our cages and hopin for food pellets.

LURLEEN
I think you're carryin that analogy a little far, Colonel. Your theories negate the concept of free will. Which is so important, I think.

MAISIE
Hope y'all feel like hot dogs!

LUCKY
Aren't you takin your medication a little serious, Vera?

VERA
Walk would do me a whole world of good right now. Maisie? Go ahead Charles, say it to Maisie, I dare you.

CHARLES
Cole cwupper.

VERA
Say it right to Maisie so SHE can hear.

CHARLES
COLE CWUPPER!

VERA
Isn't Charles a screech! Go ahead Charles and tell her, what--

CHARLES
Cole cwupper--

VERA
Means!

Noisy intrusion of Coretta.

CORETTA
Kool-Aid time!


SCENE NINE. A dream sequence: the family's voices drift in and out of each other in aleatory fashion as they collectively take an LSD trip. Meanwhile the voice of a Narrator weaves in and out of their incantations.



NARRATOR
Once upon a time, long before Mestizo became a British protectorate, a race of ancient agronomists ruled the island from the mountain summit of Quantro Cunnalingo in the inland province of Muktananda. The island measures four hundred and seventy five square kilometers north of the tropic of Cancer. Its colorful aboriginals are said to have invented the marimba. The native music for which the island is famous relies heavily on the sonorous properties of chimes. Chimes, indeed, are hung in every home. The reign of Empress Lillimacoumba was a cruel and terrible episode in the island's troubled history. Many fled to nearby archipelagos to escape the wrath of the implacable virgin tyrant, whose fondness for mango chutney mixed with human brains legend records with a certain fond irony. The earliest Mestizo documents are bark scrapings and flint-heads fashined from the amethyst-colored quartz unique to the island's mountain foothills. Wars, among the earliest events depicted in Mestizo bark scrapings, show that seldom did men play an administrative function, as all the priests were women. Women devised the earliest religion of Mestizo, the Cult of Roo, or fire goddess. Matrilineal inheritance laws recorded in the thousand symbol hieroglyphic language of the island reveal the Amazonian origin of Mestizo society. The colonial wars of the late nineteenth century demoralized the Mestizo population and destroyed the fabric of Mestizo life. European ideas and modes of dress and decorum replaced the Amazonian ideas. The island is somewhere near the territory of the Louisiana Purchase. The first guided tour occurred in January, 1957, during the rainy season.
The Macumba myth of origin begins with Joona watching fireflies from her hammock and thinking where was the white man who was coming last night, because Twanette had seen the white man's lantern glowing and heard how his fist would pound the door at the longhouse. She knew that all very well but kept hanging up her wash. Let Joona lay there all stretched out like the whore she was and let that chicken go on pecking around the iguana. It would teach Joona to leave her own village if the Macumba showed her the white man's head stuck between the plantain leaves outside the mayor's place on a pike. Joona couldn't even tell time. She put vanilla behind her ears and a drop on each wrist. But just then Twanette thought of Clovis Jones and his gift of a baby to her. And then she thought why if I were to just kill Joona right there as I did the white man I would have that chicken to eat by myself.
Twanette's fever came on with the rains. She thought the moon was in her room. She would have to get the mosquito netting repaired before Charles arrived, for he could not abide the inconvenience of the tropics. Vera reminded herself of the diary whose tiny lock she had found broken, broken brutally by an unknown hand. Perhaps it was true after all that her mother thought Vera knew more about Frank's disappearance than she had originally told that terrible policeman and the mayor. But what about it? She wondered. And the fate of pleasure? On these islands one had to abandon every thought as it passed, just like clouds, for there was little to hold them in the mind with on such balmy days. And the monsoon would be coming. It will not be the same here ever again, she realized. No, this place will never be the same ever again after what has passed.



SCENE TEN. Generic Parisian music. A hotel room.

VERA
Oh God why did we ever come here.

CHARLES
Can't you try to enjoy yourself for once, Vera? Instead of makin melodramas out of molehills?

VERA
For God's sakes Charles, this is our honeymoon!

CHARLES
I know that as well as you do.

VERA
Well?

CHARLES
Well what, Vera? What can I say? I've been depressed lately, that's all that is.

VERA
Depressed? You mean to say we just got married so all of a sudden you are depressed? Is there somethin wrong with me?

CHARLES
You know there isn't, Vera. You're a beautiful woman.

VERA
Well, if there's nothin wrong with me, Charles, there must be somethin wrong with you.

CHARLES
And what call have you got havin to go say that?

VERA
On account of you aint actin like a man, that's how come.

CHARLES
What do you know how a man is, what a man is supposed to be like? You never had a man except for yoah own brother--

VERA
STOP IT! STOP IT RIGHT NOW OR I'LL KILL YOU!!

Lureen is heard screaming from the adjacent room.

LURLEEN
VERA! COME QUICK! LUCKY'S DAID!

Vera throws open the connecting doors to her parents' suite and we hear her rushing to the bed.

VERA
OH MAH GOD! PAPPADADDY! WAKE UP PAPPADADDY! Oh Pappa wake up! Don't be daid, Daddy, tell me you ain't dead! You're my only friend, Pappadaddy! My only friend! Tell me it ain't so, Mamma, he's sleepin ain't he, this is just one of Pappadaddy's tricks, ain't it. He always could hold his breath so long it put people half his age to shame! Huh, Mama!

LURLEEN
(tragically)
That's right, child…only, he ain't holdin' his breath any longer.

VERA
(quietly)
Yeah, Mamma. I guess he ain't.



SCENE ELEVEN. Funereal music and the sound of individual family members and guests, back at Casa Neurotica, wailing and moaning at Lucky's coffin in the dining room. Off to one side, the voices of Buck and Coretta.

BUCK
(whispering)
How come they put Lucky's stiff right here in the dinin room? Aint we got a decent fun'ral parlor right over on Malcolm X Avenue?

CORETTA
(whispering)
It's an old family custom, Buck. I'm surprised you don't know about it. The livin on Mestizo watch over the daid for three days so the indigenous and theys shamans caint get hold of its spirit and transmogrify him into a zombie.

BUCK
(whispering)
Lucky was startin to look like a zombie before he even passed on.

CORETTA
(whispering)
You don't know what a shock it was, Maisie showin up so soon afore the nuptyills. Theys a whole unwritten history behind that vixen's curriculum vitae, Buck, that's what I was tryin to warn you about. Yet you are so dense you failed to take my meanin.

Gnashing and wailing and sobs, as the others file past the coffin. Finally the sounds of mourning, some of them quite obstreperous, fade out, and all leave the parlor except Charles and Maisie.

CHARLES
Guess Lucky's luck finally petered out on him.

MAISIE
You could say that again. But do me a favor Charles, and don't.

CHARLES
I guess you were a little surprised when Vera and I tied the knot.

MAISIE
You gonna start every uttrance with "guess" tonight or what?

CHARLES
Look, Maisie, try for one time to pull yourself into my position.

MAISIE
Seems to me I pulled mahself into your position one time too many considerin the outcome. Sounds like more of that old creative empathy you were describin back on the dance floor in Santo Domingo.

CHARLES
You know the Winthrops have come down in the world considerable since the days when we owned three quarters of Mestizo.

MAISIE
I know why you married her, Charles, you don't have to draw me a diagram.

CHARLES
Look heah, I've never loved Vera, Maisie. You always been the only one. But I couldn't very well go and marry you without a plug nickel now could I?

MAISIE
Funny thing is you still don't have a dime. Lucky's money's all goin' to Lurleen, and she's likely to endure until a hundred and five.

CHARLES
Not if you help me, Maisie.

MAISIE
HUH?


SCENE TWELVE.
The creaking of the second floor hallway and the hushed atmosphere of deep nocturnal lumberings. Lurleen and Maisie in whispering colloquy.

LURLEEN
What is it you need to show me at this hour, Maisie?

MAISIE
I'm tellin you Lurleen, I heard a noise.

LURLEEN
An old house like this makes more noises than a church basement full of Methodists after a bean supper. You been awful jumpy the past few days for no reason I can think of.

MAISIE
I think there must be some kinda awful prowler lurkin around here.

LURLEEN
Well at least turn on a light you damn fool or we'll both go ass over bandbox over these--

Loud scream as Lurleen goes tumbling down the stairs.

Funeral music resumes.

SCENE THIRTEEN
Time has passed. A thunderstorm. Seething rain. Coretta and Vera in the privacy of the enclosed sunporch.

VERA
Coretta, I'm scared.

CORETTA
Chile, what do you got to be scared about.

VERA
I don't exactly know exactly.

CORETTA
Well, there you are.

VERA
I feel all funny.

CORETTA
Chile, you just lost two parents inside of one week, that ain't anythin I would characterize as funny. Particularly right after losin your brother AND yoah dog.

VERA
Oh Coretta, I didn't mean funny ha-ha.

CORETTA
I know, I know, you was meanin funny strange. S'matter of fack I been feelin somewhat the same apprehension. Maybe you'd do wise to get rid o some of yoah houseguests for a spell, Miss Vera.

VERA
But the Colonel's leavin tomorrow, Coretta.

CORETTA
Ain't the Colonel I was indicatin.

VERA
You mean--

CORETTA
Now don't be askin what I mean, just listen to what I say. Some pretty odd doin's been transpirin around here since Miss Maisie Mencken come here from Cuernevaca. Might be time she rediscovered Mexico.


SCENE FOURTEEN.

Birdsong and chime tinkling on the veranda. Maisie is heard rocking in a chair. Coretta enters through the swing door.

CORETTA
Afternoon Miss Maisie.

MAISIE
(primly)
Why good afternoon, Coretta. Ain't we got a pretty sky today.

CORETTA
Uh huh. Sure do. Kinda like the sky was that day you come. When was that, anyways, Maisie, six months ago?

MAISIE
Almost to the day, Coretta. I always did favor Mestizo in the summer months.

CORETTA
Lot of stuff been happenin around Mestizo since your arrival, Miss Maisie. Lot more than six month's worth, that's for sure.

MAISIE
Why Coretta. I'm afraid I fail to follow you. Mayhaps you oughta don your do-rag in this terrible sunshine.

CORETTA
Well lemme put it more plain, Miss Maisie. That night Lurleen bought the big slumber, I had insomnia.

MAISIE
You let your nerves get the better of you. That's why you got that awful hypertension.

CORETTA
Maybe that's so. The innerestin thing is, how I happened to have heard voices, out on the landin.

MAISIE
But Coretta, how can you be sure you weren't just hearin things? Insomniacs often do.

CORETTA
I heard enough to put you up in Fentonville for fifteen to twenty.

MAISIE
(suddenly vicious)
And what if I just turned it around, Coretta? What if I was to tell evrybody it was me that was havin insomnia and hearin the voice of Lurleen dismissin one of her ungrateful servants for pilferin her ruby ring??? And then that awful sound of a struggle on the stairs! And then the SCREAM--!

CORETTA
You lowlife creepin Jezebel I never set eyes on no ruby ring belongin to Miss Lurleen--

MAISIE
(rummaging in pocket)
Oh yes you did, right here, see? And I--I found it! Searchin' your room for evidence!

CORETTA
You lyin' little dried up harlot I--(audibly lurches over) AAAGGGHH!

MAISIE
(blasé)
What's wrong now.

CORETTA
(gasping)
My heart--get---git my nitrogylcerine capsules in the yella bottle on the nighttable--next to my bed--

MAISIE
(unperturbed)
Wheah?

CORETTA
Next ta--next ta mah bed, on the nighttable--

MAISIE
But wheah exactly do you mean, Coretta?

CORETTA
FOR THE LOVA GOD, THEY'S ONLY ONE BOTTLE OF PILLS AND I AIN'T GOT TWO NIGHTTABLES!!!

MAISIE
Hold yoah horses, Coretta, calm down, now you know my ears get awful blocked in this humidity and I sweah I cain't hear a word you are sayin, you are speakin too faint!

CORETTA
Lordy I am dying…

The death rattle. Maisie's heels clatter unhurriedly into the house.

Funeral music again.


SCENE FIFTEEN.

The parlor, once again. Sniffing noises of a diagnostic nature.

MANNING
I'm afraid I'm too late. I don't know why you called a psychiatrist in the first place.

Vera can be heard sobbing uncontrollably.

VERA
Oh my God, I'm really losin' my mind!

MAISIE
(brightly)
Maybe it waren't such a bad idea to call you after all, Doctor Manning.

CHARLES
Vera's been under terrible stress, Doctor, as I'm sure you've surmised already.

Charles whispers in Manning's ear.

VERA
(suspicious)
Charles, what are you whisperin to Doctor Manning?

CHARLES
Just the truth, Vera.

VERA
Then why all the whisperin?

MANNING
Tell me somethin…wheah is Buck Nichols been keepin himself these days?

MAISIE
(too quickly)
Why, Dr. Manning, surely you don't think Buck had anything to do with--

MANNING
No, I don't, if you think what I think you mean.

MAISIE
Ha ha, I don't mean anything. I mean--

MANNING
I simply was thinkin that Buck and Miss Kierkegaard were on very close terms. Perhaps somebody ought to tell him.

MAISIE
(overeagerly)
Oh, I will!!!

MANNING
Youah in awful high spirits under the circumstances, Maisie. I hope you haven't been overdoin' your valium prescription like last time.

MAISIE
(more wanly)
Well, what with all this stress.

VERA
Maisie, what exactly did you mean when you ast Dr Manning if surely he didn't think that Buck had anythin to do with Lurleen's neck-breakin tumble in the dead o night under such murky circumstances.

MAISIE
Say that again, Vera?

VERA
Oh, never mind. I'll make some coffee.

Sound of Vera exiting.

CHARLES
Now we can talk. Vera's been mentionin' suicide quite a bit lately.

MANNING
You just told me that.

CHARLES
I know, but now I can say it in a normal voice.

MANNING
You consider that normal, Charles?

CHARLES
It's more normal than when I was whisperin, wouldn't you say?

MANNING
No, I meant Vera's talk of suicide.

MAISIE
Well, Doctor Manning, she's been depressed for quite a spell. Ever since I got here!

MANNING
Indeed.

Vera returns, with a tray of coffee.

MANNING
Can't stay for java, Vera, I have to be goin.

VERA
(frightened)
You're not leavin, Dr. Manning?

MANNING
I'm afraid I have to! I don't make my livin declarin people dead, you know.

VERA
But--

MAISIE
(sinister)
Now Vera, me and Charles is right here, you got nothin' to be afraid of. Does she, Charles?


SCENE SIXTEEN.

Same semi-liturgical atmosphere in the dining room as previously. We hear Vera's huffing and puffing, dashing back and forth across the room in terror. Finally the sound of her lifting the lid of the coffin, climbing inside, and closing it over her.

Charles and Maisie stagger in, sloppily pouring champagne in each other's glasses.

MAISIE
Won't be long now, Charles, by the looks of things!

CHARLES
Nope. Darlin'.

MAISIE
Let's have some more champagne to celebrate. Ha ha, that was inspired, puttin it into Mannin's feeble brain that Vera might kill hessef!

CHARLES
It was even more inspired of you to get Coretta out of the way.

MAISIE
Oh, that. Coretta's health always was touch and go.

Sound of Maisie leaning suggestively against the coffin. Charles can be heard pressing his body close to hers.

CHARLES
Maisie.

MAISIE
Charles.

They begin making love, with sounds indicating they are mounting each other on top of the coffin.

CHARLES
When all this is over, let's take a real vacation--we'll go to Rome, or Greece!

MAISIE
(torrid)
Oh Charles, when should we do it?

CHARLES
We're doin' it right now, baby, right here, on top of old Coretta…

MAISIE
Mmmphf--Charles--oh, hit it!--what I meant was, when do we arrange Vera's little suicide?

CHARLES
Oh honey that feels great--that feels so good--you're as tight as a lug nut--sfar's Vera goes--the sooner the better! Maybe tonight!

MAISIE
Let's finish this upstairs, Charles, Vera could walk in heah any minute--

We hear them roll slowly off the coffin and stagger out. Vera throws open the coffin lid and climbs out. She again stalks the room in hapless terror. Sound of a figure stepping through the French doors.

COLONEL
SURPRISE!

The flicker of the Colonel's cigar lighter.



VERA
Colonel, why'd you come back? Oh, Colonel--Coretta's--

COLONEL
You don't have to tell me, Vera. You see, I never actually left.

VERA
I don't really follow you.

COLONEL
Fact is, I knew somethin fishy was up on Mestizo quite a long time ago.

VERA
And you put two and two together?

COLONEL
Not right off the bat. I had a little help.

We hear Buck Nichols stepping into the room heartily.

VERA
Buck!

BUCK
Howdy, Miss Vera.

VERA
I sure am sorry about Coretta, Buck.

The coffin lid flies open again and Coretta's shrill voice is heard.

CORETTA
Well, don't be.

Vera faints. Sudden more footsteps, sound of Dr. Manning entering with smelling salts.




MANNING
Now just INHALE, Vera, y'ain't runnin for President.

VERA
(coming to)
I cain't believe this!

CORETTA
It's true! I was just puttin on a act for that harlot upstairs.

MANNING
Coretta told me her suspicions and I agreed to go along with the masquerade.

VERA
What do you mean by masquerade?

Loud coughing as Lucky steps out from behind the curtains.

LUCKY
Take a guess!

Vera faints again. Lurleen's distinct clopping high heeled entrance, snatches smelling salts from Manning and waves them under Vera's nose. When Vera revives and realizes it's Lurleen, she faints again.

LURLEEN
Perhaps we should let Vera take a little rest from all the excitement.

Maisie and Charles enter the room stealthily. Charles drops a bottle of chloroform, Maisie's revolver hits the floor and Maisie faints.

COLONEL
The game's over, Charles.

BUCK
Thas right, Charles, the jig's up!

LUCKY
Party's over, Charles.

CHARLES
I don't get it! You're dead! You're all dead! Most of you, anyway!

LURLEEN
That's where you're wrong, Charles.

CORETTA
Uh-huh. Think again.

MANNING
Things aren't how they look.

CHARLES
I can see that!

MANNING
Ya see, Charles, it all began with Frank's disappearance. Lucky here had a hunch that with Frank gone, you'd come round to have a crack at the family fortune.

LUCKY
That's right, Charles. I knew you'd been leadin Vera on for no good reason. And then I hired some detectives to trail you down to Mexico. And guess what, the trail led right straight to Maisie Mencken.

Vera awakens loudly, looks around in bewilderment.

VERA
I don't get it!

LUCKY
That's why I pretended to suffocate that night you came into my room in Paris. Dr. Manning played along with that one, too.

CHARLES
But you, Lurleen--I pushed you down the stayuhs!

LUREEN
(proudly)
I wasn't a stunt woman in John Wayne pictures for nothin. You oughta do your homework before you go dabblin in MURDAH.

A dog barks loudly.

CORETTA
Lordy, lordy, Miss Vera, if I didn't know better I'd say that sounded sackly like--

Vera rushes to the veranda.

VERA
TANDY! OH, TANDY!

A dog comes bounding closer, followed by trudging footsteps.

VERA
FRANK! YOUAH ALIVE! EVERYBODY, FRANK AND TANDY ARE ALIVE!!!


The end.