"The October storm, caused by a double-barrel low-pressure system in eastern Nebraska, is the most intense so far of this winter season." "Travelers' warnings for flash flooding, high winds, and severe thunderstorms..." "Motorists are advised to take extreme caution, as already the road conditions have become treacherous, especially in those areas where the highways cross or are near rivers or other major bodies of water." "I repeat, the Weather Bureau has issued travelers' warnings for flash flooding, high winds, and severe thunderstorms." "The motorist is advised to take extreme caution as road conditions have already..." "Shut the hell up." "Goddamn puppet." "You're nothing but a puppet for the Weather Bureau." "And they pull the string that makes your mouth go up and down." "I'll bet you don't even know what the hell an isobar is." "And don't go telling me it's some kind of a Popsicle." "'Cause it ain't!" "I got schooling in me." "I'm no dummy." "Charlie saw to that." "Charlie didn't want no dummy for a wife." "And I didn't want no Charlie McCarthy for a husband either." "I wanted Charlie Hammond." "And I wanted to be Mrs. Gert Hammond." "Wife of Charlie." "Charlie's woman." "Forever." "Not just till they came." "Stinking windshield wipers don't make a damn of a difference." "I shouldn't be toting around mammals on a night like this." "Why the hell didn't that crummy circus give me the amphibian cage?" "Pipe down, Samson!" "You might be king of the jungle in Africa, but in this circus, you're nothing but a bozo." "Every time I see that trainer putting the hula hoops on you and I see those kids screaming with the Cracker Jacks flying out of their mouths and the cotton candy sticking to their chins, it makes me sick!" "Sick, Samson!" "Yeah, sick." "I want to puke on them." "God knows it wouldn't make any difference, what with the mustard and ice cream dripping down their fat little necks." "God, you can't even tell between the freckles and the mashed popcorn." "No, Medusa." "I wasn't talking about you." "Gorillas are different from little children." "They have more hair." "Don't know what he's carrying, but whatever they are, they sure are hungry." "I don't have to worry about hunger." "Of the stomach." "Just the other hunger." "The one more ravishing that I worry about." "But why worry?" "Wasn't there something I read or heard in church, something about birds." "Birds don't worry about eating, and yet God provides plenty of food." "But I " " I'm not satisfied with just worms!" "I need something more substantial." "Howdy, stranger." "No need to ask if you need a lift." "We all need one in this kind of weather." "The real question The $64,000 question is" "How high do you want to get?" "What are you -- a junkie?" "Only junk I carry is on my wrist." "And what do you have in those two crates?" "Oh, it's just something I picked up when I was hitchhiking from Tucson." "Well, you take your two crates and you take yourself and you get yourself right into this car before you drown in that rain." "Yes, ma'am." "Right away." "Sash, pick up that lily-white butt and go help with Mr. Stranger with his things." "And just give him a hand, you hear?" "I was ordered to lend you a hand and nothing more." "Those were the orders from our general over there with her junk-jewelry medals." "Why do you listen to her?" "Why did you bring what I was told --the lily-white butt out in this rain?" "My butt's white from being so numb after two days of driving." "But it used to be red when we used to live in Tucson." "If only you could have seen it then." "Gee, ma'am, I ain't even seen the white one yet." "So quit jumping the gun." "Oh, you'll see it all right." "Just a matter of time." "Sash!" "And Ruta's whim." "Sash, honey, your skirt's soaked through to the skin." "So please take it off before sitting next to me." "Now, come on in, you two, and Mister What's your name again?" "Toydy." "Toydy McNeil." ""Toydy"?" "Is that Brooklyn?" "No." "Why?" "Well, in Brooklyn, they say things like doydy and boydy and toydy." "I was educated in Brooklyn." "Brooklyn Community College." "It was quite a community of fatsos." "They really believed in letting it all hang out." "Hanging out of their shirt sleeves and the collars of their suits and their two-piece bathing suits." "You know, people see whales on the beach after a storm, and they think that's something." "That's only because they've never been to Brighton Beach." "Well, I'm for letting it all hang out." "That's been my motto since I was 17." "I'm sure what you have to hang out is well worth exposing to the light of day." "Or, for that matter, a 6-watt overhead lamp." "Care to surface your breathing snorkel?" "Ruta, cut it out." "Turn off that light." "I've had enough of this filth." "Who was she telling you about back there?" "Oh, nothing much." "Something about Tucson." "About how she used to have a red butt?" " Shut up, Ruta." " That's it." "She said she had a red butt when she was in Arizona." "Ruta!" "She didn't get it from lying in too much sun." "I can tell you that." "You want to know how she got it?" "Shut up, Ruta." "I'm warning you." "You want to know, stranger?" "Yeah, well, I don't know." "Sure." "Roo, you keep your mouth shut!" "He wants to know, honey." "Shut up!" "I'm not going to tell you till you let it all hang out." "Come on, now." "Fair's fair." "I let you see her lily-white butt, didn't I?" "Ooh, baby doll." "For that, I'd give you the formula to the atomic bomb if I knew it." "Didn't you learn that stuff in Brooklyn Community College?" "They taught us about atomic fission and fusion." "And I was all hot for fusion, baby." "Red hot like your friend's butt was?" "You didn't tell him, Roo, did you?" "I have to tell him now, Sash." "I can't leave him hanging in the air when he's giving me what I want right in the palm of my hand." "You'll never live to tell him!" "Never!" "Hey, I saw something." "An explosion or something." " What?" " I don't know." "It was like a big ball of fire, like something exploded." "A gas tank or something." "You're very observant." "So are you." "I've been noticing you scrutinizing me for a long time now." "What was it you were scrutinizing?" "My nose?" "Was there a piece of snot hanging from my nose?" "No." "Well, I caught a cold, you know, waiting out there in the rain until you picked me up." "I'm mighty grateful to you, what, with all your sweet music and your fancy-smelling pipe tobacco." "What's the matter?" "You don't like Tchaikovsky?" "I'm not complaining, Chandler." "In fact, I said I'm mighty grateful." "it's just that..." "What, Bond?" "Well, it's just..." "My gazes?" "My admiring glances?" "At your rather extravagant torso put you ill at ease?" "Well, no." "It's just that that's all you're doing is just looking." "You mean you were expecting me to do something else?" "Me?" "Chandler Wilson?" "Heir to the Wilson fortune?" "And widower of Sarah Lou Phillips from the House of Phillips Unlimited?" "You mean the House of Phillips, that big girdle manufacturing plant down in Waco?" "Yes." "That's exactly what I mean." "That big girdle factory in central Texas where everything grows big, especially a middle-age gut." "I'm scared of that." "Scared of what?" "Middle-age gut." "Well, you've got nothing to fret about, Bond." "From the looks of things, your gut looks like it's made out of coiled steel." "You really think so, Chandler?" "Pull your shirt down!" "What's wrong?" "What did I do wrong, Chandler?" "That's the second time you've flown off the handle tonight." "The first time is when I wanted to show you that tattoo on my thigh." "I told you at the time that I had no interest whatsoever in looking at a tattoo of a dodo bird." "But they're extinct." "You can't see them anymore." "I'm well aware of that, Bond, but I think that having one tattooed on your hairy thigh is in extreme poor taste, especially considering that the species has vanished forever." "My thigh isn't hairy." "Let's just skip the subject, shall we?" "Chandler?" "Yeah?" "Didn't your wife pass away recently?" "I seem to remember reading something about it somewhere." "My wife, Sarah Lou Phillips, daughter of Leland, the creator of the House of Phillips Unlimited, died last year." "Died a horrible death." "I'm terribly sorry." "For her or for me?" "For the both of you." "Well, reserve your bleeding heart strictly for her." "Our marriage was going up in smoke anyway." "It's just that she turned the expression into a reality." "Wasn't there a fire?" "Wasn't your wife killed in a fire?" "You're very observant Bond." "Is that where you got your good-looking body?" "From chasing fire engines down the street?" "I work hard to get this body looking the way it does." "Well, I bet you have." "And is the investment paying off?" "Not tonight it isn't." "Bond, I, uh..." "I find you very attractive." "So attractive that I want to throw you out of this car." "Well, I don't get it." "If you find me so attractive, why the hell would you want to throw me out of the car?" "I mean, I'm the one that ought to be getting out of this car voluntarily, knowing what's on your mind." "I can't help what's on my mind, Bond." "It's been a year since I've had any worthwhile sexual encounters." "Is that when your wife died?" "Oh, the hell with her!" "When I mentioned Sarah Lou Phillips, heiress to the House of Phillips Unlimited," "I'm not talking about worthwhile sex." "It wasn't sex that we shared in the dark on that Castro Convertible sofa her mother bought us." "No." "No, that was infantile perversion!" "I want you to tell me about it, Chandler." "why?" "Why would a clean, good-looking kid like you want to delve into the filth of the rich?" "'Cause it's a dark, stormy night and there ain't nothing but this cigarette and the light on the radio dial and the rain and your face in that light." "You got a nice face, Chandler." "You got a real nice face." "Give me a puff of that cigarette, kid." "First it's a pipe." "Now it's a cigarette." "What's it going to be next, Chandler?" "White Owl cigar maybe?" "You've got an uncanny way of getting under my skin." "Wouldn't it be much nicer if I got into it rather than under it?" "Something the matter, Officer?" "Something wrong?" "Officer?" "Oh, no." "I'm nothing like that." "I'm just a housewife." "That's all I am." "See my badge." "That was given to me by my husband." "He's the country rock singer Simon Cassidy." "Perhaps you've heard of him." "I've got his pictures right here, and they're all personally autographed by Simon." "Would you like one?" "I'm his secretary, and Simon personally autographs every 8x10 glossy for his friends." "You, young fella." "You look like a country rock fan." "Are you not?" "Sort of." "My, my, my." "Aren't you a wet noodle?" "He's no wet noodle, lady." "I can testify to that." "Well, I'm becoming one just standing out here in all this rain." "Listen, I just stopped to converse with my fellow travelers about the explosion I just saw down the road a bit." "I told you, Chandler." "I told you I saw something blow up." "Maybe a bolt of lightning hit a tree or something like that." "I didn't see no lightning, mister." "There was a big yellow flash and then an orange sheet of fire." "Chandler, maybe somebody got hurt." "Listen, kid." "I vowed before embarking on this trip that once I started, I was never looking back." "Now, I'm going to Waco, Texas, to that great giant girdle factory that stands like a mammoth mausoleum to the memory of my dead wife, Sarah Lou Phillips." "You mean Sarah Lou Phillips of the House of Phillips Unlimited?" "Yeah." "That's what he's talking about." "And I don't intend to water down my mission, the only mission I've got in life, just because some ball of fire lights up the night sky in this godforsaken nowhere land." "No, the ball of fire I've got planned is going to rival the sun itself." "You mark my words, Bond." "It's gonna turn night into day!" "You scare me, mister." "You're talking like some sort of beatnik." "And supposing I am, what have you got against beatniks?" "Well, for one thing, their bongo drums." "I can't stand all that stupid pounding." "Listen, I don't know how we got on this hypotrical subject." ""Hypothetical."" "Well, that's what I said." "Now, we ought to go back." "There might be people dying back there." "There are people up ahead who are dying, too." "Look, Chandler." "I gave you that cigarette, and you put it in your mouth." "How about that White Owl Cigar?" "I saw some lights up ahead." "There's probably a farmhouse up there." "So I'll go and check and see if they have a telephone just in case you find someone injured." "All right, lady." "We'll meet you there." "God bless you and keep you, for the devil walks about on nights such as this." "Who is it?" "Who's that knocking at my door?" "Is that you, Mr. Maple Tree?" "ls the wind making you bang your branches against my door?" "Hello in there." "Anybody home?" "Oh, my God." "That was a human voice." "That was a woman's voice calling from behind that door!" "Who is it that speaks to me with the voice of a woman'?" "!" "My name is Mrs. Cassidy." "Sorry to bother you, but I need your help." "Well, just a minute, Mrs. Cassidy!" "Mrs. Gert Hammond will be with you in a minute!" "Please be patient." "Why couldn't she have telephoned before coming over?" "It isn't fair after all these years that someone should knock on my door and not even warn me of their visit." "Thirty minutes' warning." "That's all I ask." "One half-hour to bathe and scent my body in preparation for the ensuing visitation." "Just a moment, Mrs. Cassidy!" "Mrs. Gert Hammond will be with you in a moment." "Please forgive the delay." "My hair." "She mustn't see my hair like this." "Oh, my God." "I'm seeing double." "I'm so drunk," "I can't possibly hold an audience with Mrs. Cassidy." "Oh, what'll she think of me?" "She'll pity me." "I'll be a disgrace to the memory of my dead husband." "Oh." "Oh." "I got to get this alcohol out of my system." "[eassl" "Oh, why did you have to come without calling, Mrs. Cassidy?" "Please don't go away!" "I'm coming!" "Please, I'm coming right now!" "My goodness!" "Noah himself never had it so bad." "If it keeps up like this, we're gonna have to build ourselves a" "Have you been sick or something, ma'am?" "My name is Mrs. Gert Hammond." "Welcome to Prairie Blossom, the name my husband and I chose for the estate you are now standing on." "What happened to your head?" "Please, let me finish." "Our home, built upon a stretch of prairie between the Chickasaw and Thunderbird Rivers, was built by hand with loving care by my husband, Charlie, who now lies buried in the wine cellar beneath our very feet." "The stones that comprise the outer wall of this stately mansion were shipped by horse and cart..." "Uh..." "The wonderful granite stones from the quarry in the state of Connecticut were shipped by horse and cart in, uh..." "By four white horses pulling a huge cart made from the hardwood oak of Kensington County." "The date of departure listed at the county courthouse is April 13, 1918." "Friday." "Friday the 13th." "The same date as the death of my husband, when that hideous nightmare swept down from the Rockies." "Oh, my dear wretched woman!" "How could God in his mercy leave you alone in this wilderness?" "I'm gonna cleanse you with the waters that are in such profusion tonight." "How many days and nights has your womanly body been deprived of a washcloth?" "What do the widows of the world need with a washcloth?" "Well, soap, for one thing." "And a soothing body oil for special occasions." "Who are you?" "!" "Coming into my house with your talk of soap and bath oils?" "If you're trying to sell something, get out!" "I have no money!" "Only memories." "I'm not selling anything." "I'm giving away for free the charity that was instilled in me in my girlhood as a First Baptist in the First Church of Christ." "The same church that my husband and I were married in." "Do you know who my husband is?" "No." "Simon Cassidy." "Who's he?" "Do you mean to tell me you don't know who Simon Cassidy is, a country rock singer?" "You, one of the lonely women who's allowed my husband to come into your room via the radio to dispel the gloom of your empty rooms?" "Don't you get jealous?" "My husband and I are as true to each other as we were three years ago when we were married in Kentucky." "The wedding was perfect." "There was something new my snow-white virginity." "[Wagner's "Bridal Chorus" PIHYSI" "Something old" "Simon's mother who came in the most god-awful satin rag." "She looked like a bag of potatoes that was oozing margarine." "Then there was something borrowed" "Simon's credit card." "And something blue the bluegrass of Kentucky moving up and down the hills like the Pacific Ocean." "One of these days, I'm gonna see the Pacific Ocean for real when Simon makes it to Hollywood." "Does Hollywood want your husband?" "Why, hell, yes." "Of course Hollywood wants my husband." "But the parts have just not been up to Simon's true creative capacity." "Don't stop." "Keep talking." "Well, of course, you've heard of Hal B. Wallis, the big movie producer who produces all of Elvis' movies?" "Yes." "Oh, yes." "Mr. Hal B. Wallis sent my husband's agent a script for a small singing part in the film "Bazookas For Peace."" "Oh." "I'd give my piece for a bazooka any time." "After a little conference with my husband and his agent, in which I served some homemade brownies and Turkish coffee, we all decided that the part would be detrimental to Simon's career, since it was a gruesome sequence." "Simon was to be a private in the infantry who sings a song to his troops about life in beautiful Ohio." "Well, that part's all right." "Would you" "Would you mind washing me a little lower, please?" "Oh, there." "That's fine." "Anyhow, he was to be singing about beautiful Ohio when suddenly, a bazooka shell hits my husband, hits Simon, who plays a private, and hits him, of all places, in his privates." "He was talking about shooting it in slow motion, and I tell you, it made me sick just thinking about it." "That's just the way I felt." "Oh, it's painful." "Imagine my husband, in his motion-picture debut, being violently emasculated in wide-screen color in front of millions of screaming females." "That's right, honey." "Screaming just like that." "Why, that would be absolutely the end of his career as an all-singin', all-actin', all-lovin' he-man." "Thank you." "Thank you." "Willene is my name." "And you are, uh, Gert?" "Yes." "I'm Gert." "But I'm a Gert reborn." "Every day is a rebirth." "Every day is Easter." "Just remember to color your eggs happy colors, like yellow and baby blue." "By the way, honey, where is your telephone?" "it's in the other room." "Thank you." "There's no sound on this thing." "The lines must be down." "The storm has no mercy for the telephone company." "Anyway, it's dangerous to talk on the phone when there's lightning in the sky." "Oh, you're very good luck for my, Willene!" "Those doors have not felt human knuckles for a long time." "I think I know who it is." "It's probably the two men I left in the road awhile ago." "Gracious!" "What sort of mischief has the storm been up to?" "Then there was a crash!" "You bet there was." "A real bad one, too." "Here we go." "Yeah, they were lucky they managed to crawl away from the wreck before the gas tank exploded." "Why is that woman partially disrobed?" "Was it the impact of the crash that did that?" "My skirt was wet." "That witch over there didn't want me to stain the upholstery." "I should have had you leave the dress on." "A wet stain is better than a smelly brown one." "Now, cut it out, you two." "There's no more upholstery, period." "Yeah, that car ain't nothing but a smoldering wreck." "Instead of fighting, you three ought to get down on your knees and thank the God Almighty." "Listen, sister." "I get down on my knees for only one thing, and it's the men who thank the Almighty I'm doing it." "Whoo!" "She's a sassy one, ain't she?" "Your zipper's open, young man." "Mnh, sorry." "Fresh mouth over there wasn't satisfied with handling her stick shift." "It wasn't my fault the goddamn crash happened." "Angel puss over there was to blame." "And for good reason, to shut you up!" "Well, you shut me up this time, baby, but maybe next time you won't be so lucky." "Hush, you two." "You'll wake the dead." "You leave my husband out of this." "My husband was a decent man." "Who is this woman?" "She's, um, Mrs...uh..." "My name is Mrs. Gert Hammond." "Welcome to Prairie Blossom, the name my husband and I chose for the estate you are now standing on." "Lady..." "Why don't you just cut the crap and get me something to drink?" "Please forgive my manners." "It's been so long since I've entertained." "Well, you're doing pretty good in that shorty kimono, miss." "it's Mrs." "Mrs. Hammond is a widow." "Her husband is buried in the wine cellar." "Oh, really?" "Well, then why don't you just forget about those drinks." "Afraid of the dead, Roo?" "No, I just don't like things that lie on their backs all the time without turning over." "I couldn't agree with you more." "Not me." "I always sleep on my back." "And why is that?" "'Cause in the back, everything lies down flat." "Nothing pokes up." "There's nothing flat about your back." "In fact, it's damn nice and round." "If you're so accustomed to eyeing buttocks, what's keeping you from straining your peepers on this bottomless broad over here?" "I'm not a broad!" "I resent that male chauvinist slur to my femininity." "You shut up!" "Shut your fat mouth, and quit talking like the ghost of my dead wife!" "Chandler, your wife's dead!" "She's dead!" "Yeah, but not forgotten." "No." "Women like her that won't let me forget." "You want to know how she died, the stupid fool?" "!" "Let go of my throat!" "Stop that childish nonsense this instant!" "She died at a garden party one afternoon." "She took her girdle off, and she held a match to it as a sign of her liberation." "Chandler, let go of her throat!" "Yeah, but what she didn't know is that the girdle was flammable and blow up in her goddamn face!" "Stop it!" "I'm gonna be sick!" "Oh, not again." "It blew up right in her face, and her head was covered with flaming liquid rubber." "God have mercy." "Cheesy cow, you almost strangled me." "Everyone at the garden party started screaming." "Then they threw their drinks on her to douse out the flames." "Only, they forgot it was alcohol they were drinking." "Oh, my dear God." "The horror of the moment was so great, to all extents and purposes, we were just staring at this flaming, screaming Scarecrow running across the green lawn in a panic." "And we all started laughing." "I laughed so hard that tears were running down my cheeks." "We all roared hysterically until there was this hideous hiss." "And then a white column of steam that boiled skyward from the swimming pool where she fell in." "Then there was silence." "Dead silence." "I'm sorry." "I didn't know that your wife was Sarah Lou Phillips, the daughter of Leland Phillips, creator of House of Phillips Unlimited." "In Waco, Texas." "Well, I didn't realize that I'd married into such notoriety." "To us, the women of North America, your wife was a martyred saint." "She was a stupid idiot, a sick nitwit." "You wanted to hear about our love life, didn't you, Bond?" "Well, I'm gonna tell you all the filthy details." "I'm gonna tell you right here and right now." "Shut up, Chandler." "This isn't the time or the place." "No." "No, it wouldn't be for you!" "You'd rather I told you at midnight behind the trash cans at a Greyhound bus depot." "You cheap, rotten hustler." "You brute!" "I'm sorry, Chandler, but you tried to cheapen me in front of all these people by suggesting that I'd sell my body to you for money!" "And that's an outright lie!" "When I give my body, it's like a gift from God without any monteary reward." ""Monetary."" "That's what I said." "It's like a gift from God without any kind of monetary reward." "Amen." "Well, tell me, O divined one, can I light a candle at your altar sometime and pray that you will bestow your blessings on me some night?" "Who are you kidding?" "Everyone is welcome at Prairie Blossom." "Come, take off your wet clothes and get into something dry and warm." "You are welcome to don the apparel hanging before you." "To your right, you'll find the clothing that adorned me in my youth." "To your left, there hang the garments of my deceased husband." "They hang there in the exact condition in which he left them." "For your convenience and privacy while changing, may I suggest that you use the far bedroom down that hallway?" "And now that you have your instructions, may I wish you all a hearty welcome for the duration of your stay." "Look, lady." "You're very nice and all that." "But, hell, I don't want to stick around here." "I don't think we have much choice." "You notice the level of the river when we crossed it?" "How could we remember with the accident and all?" "Believe me." "We were lucky to make it with the water so high." "Yeah, that's right." "Why, it was all foggy when I looked out the car window and seen that swirling water." "I sobered up really quick." "That bridge is gone by now." "And likewise, the bridge that crosses the Chickasaw." "Uh-huh." "No, my friends." "You must not, you cannot go into that purgatory out those front doors." "Please avail yourself of my hospitality until the good Lord sees fit to turn off his faucet." "I will leave you for a while to prepare some goodies from the kitchen." "Remember, please, to use that far bedroom down the hallway." "And please be patient with one another." "The night is always long on the prairie." "Thank you, Mrs. Hammond." "On behalf of us all, may I wish you God's blessings in your charitable work." "She is a wonderful woman of vigorous pioneer stock." "She's got some pair of boobs." "I'll say that much!" "I think you've said just about enough." "I bet her butt's seen a lot of plowing." "Never mind about her, you and I've got some unfinished business to take care of later." "Don't hold your breath." "I'd hate to see that nice face turn blue." "You're gonna get it." "One of these days, you're gonna get it so big, it's gonna turn you black and blue for a week." "I give it, Mack." "I don't take it." "Oh, boy." "Ah." "Ohh." "Oh." "Oh, darn you." "Darn you." "Come on!" "Hurry up!" "What are you doing, playing with yourself'?" "!" "I think the person that decorated this room had you in mind." "Hmm." "Ugh." "Ooh." "I hear that noise in there, Roo." "Don't be shaving your legs with an electric razor when I'm freezing out here in these wet clothes." "Here, zip me up, will you?" "Have fun, baby." "Oh." "Turn around." "Ohh, come on." "Turn around." "Ohh." "Oh, my God." "Oh, that's a big one." "Oh, boy." "Ohh." "I heard this was the melon season, and now I believe it." "Melons have seeds and I don't." "Not even after that encounter with Johnny Appleseed over there?" "Gyrate, buster." "Wow!" "Would you get a load of this?" "Who would have thought that old bugger was into graphic art?" "Yeah, get a load of this stuff." "It's really graphic." "Check this dude out." "Get in there, god damn it!" "Oh!" "Oh!" "So, that's your game, you batty bozo!" "You should be ashamed of yourself, telling everybody you're in the kitchen making goodies." "And you ain't doing nothing of the kind." "In fact, you've got the gall to hide behind someone who never lied in his life!" "Toydy, it's Mrs. Cassidy." "Are you finished yet?" "Yeah, sure." "Come on in." "Don't you ever do that to me again!" "I ain't done nothing to you yet, lady." "You have no sense of common decency!" "Here's a toothpick for you!" "And if it's decency you want, don't come in this room." "That filthy man." "I'm afraid you've opened your doors as well as your heart to the scum of this planet." "Here on spaceship Earth, there is no scum." "There are just malfunctioning circuits." "Well, someone's sure malfunctioning in your bedroom." "That isn't my bedroom." "Well, whose is it, then, your husband's?" "It was our son's bedroom." "Was?" "You mean he's gone, moved away?" "No." "Well, where is he, then?" "My son " " Our son no longer exists." "Oh, Mrs. Hammond." "I'm really sorry." "I didn't realize that tragedy had struck you twice." "Is he dead, then?" "No." "He does not exist." "Well, I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean, but I certainly wouldn't be callous enough to dwell on the subject." "May I have something to eat?" "By all means." "Help yourself." "This looks refreshing." "Oh, it's a cucumber." "Are you in the habit of peeling your cucumbers in advance?" "Yes, it ages the flavor." "It certainly does." "Boy, does this taste odd." "Eat up." "You'll soon acquire a taste for it." "I'd like for you to." "It would make for a much closer friendship between us." "I'm afraid I can't finish it." "Would you like to share it?" "No, I've already had it." "Thank you." "Do you mind if I throw it away?" "Not at all, my dear." "Most things of that nature are disposable." "Just throw it in that bag under the sink." "Why, Mrs. Hammond." "You've got a whole pile of them in here." "Call me Gert, Willene." "I feel that you've gotten to know me more intimately." "Yes." "Those cucumbers did not age properly enough to suit my hungry lips." "So I had to get rid of them." "Oh." "The smell is really terrible." "I'll take out the trash if you pick up that thing in the hallway." "What thing in the hallway?" "Well, it looks like a banana slug, but don't let that fool ya." "Banana slugs wiggle, and the only thing wiggling at the end of that thing was Toydy." "He's quite a man, isn't he?" "Well, part of him is a man." "The other part, I'm not too sure about." "The coin of sexuality always has two faces." "That's what my son always used to say." "Are those your son's toys in the bedroom?" "My son was rather grown up for a boy of 16." "That's when he started to order those divertissements through the mail." "They always came in a plain brown wrapper." "And every morning," "I'd bring them in along with his breakfast tray." "He was strictly forbidden to open them until he had eaten all of his breakfast." "There was usually prune juice." "Why prune juice?" "Gerald always wanted his system cleaned out regularly." "Well, I can see why, after that thing in the hallway." "Who'd want to keep washing their toys all the time?" "And after the prune juice, there'd be two eggs sunny side up and four sausage links." "And after the sausage, there'd be three pieces of buttered toast, along with a steaming hot cup of coffee." "I bet he'd take plenty of cream in his coffee." "My son loved cream." "He licked it up like a cat." "But a cat has nine lives, and your son unfortunately had only one." "So, now he joins your husband in death." "My husband is dead." "My son is no more." "He no longer exists." "Come, Willene." "Shall we prepare a little dinner for our guests?" "Damn it, I need a drink!" "The wine is in the cellar!" "Please help yourselves to whatever vintage the occasion calls for." "Go ahead, Roo." "Go get us some wine." "I ain't going down there with no dead man lying around." "I'll go get the wine if Bond comes with me." "I don't like cellars, Chandler." "They smell funny." "Do they smell fishy?" "Is that what it is?" "Well, hell, kid, with Chandler, it's not gonna smell fishy, just strong and musky." "Mrs. Hammond, is there a light down in the basement?" "No, but there's a large flashlight over by the window." "Well, that's real good." "In case you can't get it up, Chandler, you got something to fall back on." "What's going on?" "Stop it!" "Stop it, you two!" "You're nothing but a troublemaker." "I don't make trouble." "I just make whoopee." "You make me sick!" "You make me sick!" "That's what you make me!" "When I put the make on you, Chandler, you may choke and gag a little, but you're not gonna feel sick." "Who do you think you're talking to, one of those life-size dolls in the bedroom?" "No." "Their mouths are operated on air power." "His operates on lust." "That's what you can expect from my mouth, Toydy." "Save that spit for Bond's flashlight." "By the look of the bulge in his pants, you're gonna need it." "My God!" "Back there in the kitchen, it sounded like a tornado had decided to join our little party." "Sorry about the lamp." "Look, I'll give you 6 bucks for it." "Will that be enough?" "I don't want your money." "You people have lit up my life more brightly than that lamp could ever have done." "And if you'll just wait 15 minutes," "Willene and I will prepare you a tangible example of my gratefulness." "Come, Willene." "The pots and pans are waiting." "I hope she wasn't referring to us." "Here." "Give me that flashlight." "You've got your hands full." "Full of the wrong stuff." "What do you mean?" "I'd rather have them wrapped around you." "What brought that on?" "The way you handled yourself in that room back there." "How do you know what I was doing in the bedroom?" "I don't mean the bedroom." "I mean the way you acted in the living room." "Oh, that." "Well, he had it coming." "I don't mean just the rough stuff." "I mean the thoughtfulness and the tenderness that you exhibited to Mrs. Hammond." "What, you mean the $6?" "Well, I was willing to give it to her, but she just wouldn't take it." "You won't find that problem with me." "Huh." "What do you want, $6?" "$6, plus interest." "And what's the interest?" "To put it bluntly, my interest in your body." "Not my thoughtfulness and tenderness, just my body?" "I'm playing by the rules of your own game, Chandler." "I want you to get excited about me the same way that you would towards your friend Bond." "He's not my friend." "I picked him up when it was dark and he was alone." "Like we are here?" "We're not alone here." "You're forgetting about Mrs. Hammond's husband." "He doesn't count." "He's lifeless and limp." "Well, I'm afraid there's something else that you'll find in the same condition." "So, don't be getting your hopes up too high." "I don't want to get my hopes up high." "It's your 'something else' I'm trying to raise." "Well, knowing the way that I am, good luck." "Luck is supposed to be a lady, so that cuts the odds down just a bit." "Just a very little bit, I'm afraid." "I forgot to ask whether she was serving meat or fish." "This would be great with meat." "Well, save it for down here because I want meat." "What are you wearing?" "Aren't those Bond's clothes?" "Yes, they are." "What's that thing pressed into your pants?" "Something I picked up in the bedroom." "Look at me, Chandler, just for tonight." "In dim lighting, I'm Bond." "And this cellar is the bus depot." "Come on." "You can have me for $6." "You were right." "About what?" "Luck is a lady." "Not tonight, she isn't." "Where do you want me, Mack?" "Just get down on the table and pull your trousers down." "Make that louder!" "That's my husbands new song on the radio." "I I can tell you, 'cause I heard it today J'" "He just cut that record." "Well, good for him." "I'm more interested in somebody who can cut the mustard." "You looking for a frankfurter to go along with that mustard?" "Sure am, but I've come equipped with my own if it turns out you aren't kosher." "My frankfurter don't care whether your buns are large or small." "It ain't fussy." "J' Honest to God J'" "J' That's the lyrics to "A Lovebird's Song" J'" "Hey, what's your name?" "It's Willene." "Mrs. Willene Cassidy." "And that's my husband Simon's record on the radio." "You got any idea what's inside this locked door?" "I know it's gonna be a hit." "I just know it." "How many hours you been waiting at this depot?" "Three." "What bus am I taking?" "10:25 to Houston." "Is it the Silver Eagle Service?" "Yeah." "You even get a hostess on board." "With a big lavatory and a mirror?" "A real big mirror." "You know what time it is now?" "No!" "No!" "Ll:'s 1 0225!" "It's coming in fast." "No!" "Here it comes!" "Oh, God!" "No!" "So soon!" "My watch says it's 10:24." "It's ahead of schedule, and it's coming in fast." "Here it comes!" "Has anybody ever told you you have a nice body for a woman so mature?" "Why, yes, young man." "My husband, Charlie, used to compliment me on my torso." "He said it reminded him of a classical Greek sculpture." "You do remind me of something Greek, but it ain't sculpture." "Sculpture's too cold." "You remind me more of a nice juicy piece of shish kebab meat." "Flattery will get you nowhere." "Would you like me to turn you into a piece of shish kebab meat?" "And how are you going to do that?" "It's real simple." "There's the oven, and here is the meat." "Now all we need is a long, hard rod to run you through." "What about the vegetables?" "Oh." "Your head." "Your head's a cabbage." "What about the potatoes?" "Don't forget the potatoes." "Ahh, here they are." "Two lumpy 10-pound bags." "You're very cruel." "I should pull away." "But I can't." "Why not?" "Because I would fall into the oven like the witch in "Hansel and Gretel."" "That would leave you alone in this gingerbread house to eat all the cookies and peppermint sticks." "And what's wrong with that?" "You would get sick." "And no one would be around to give you an enema." "You like giving enemas?" "My son Gerald liked them." "I bet it was a nice, fire-engine-red enema bag." "I didn't use an enema bag." "My son Gerald always requested that I hook up a heavy garden hose to the kitchen faucet." "He was used to bigger things, wasn't he?" "My son was big for his age." "He was to be doomed with bigness." "Are you ready for the rod, Miss Shish Kebab?" "Oh, yes." "Hurry, please." "It's getting so hot by this oven." "Hand me that tin of grease on the stove over there." "What is it?" "It's bacon fat." "I bet when you fart, it's gonna sound like a pig." "Oink!" "Oink!" "Have you no respect for me?" "No." "None at all." "That would ruin the whole thing." "What is it that you and your generation are seeking?" "I don't know about my generation, but I would like to know what you have behind that locked door." "There's too much talk in this kitchen and not enough action." "Start cooking me now, honey, before I go rotten." "Sorry." "No deal, baby." "Not until you give me those keys." "You are a slimy, slippery reptile!" "Don't you be calling me slimy and slippery with all that bacon fat oozing down your thighs." "You have degraded my sacredness as a woman." "You defiled with ugly fat the Grecian classicism of my body!" "Your body was nothing but ugly fat to begin with." "A little extra never hurt none." "If thy eyes offend thee, pluck them out." "If thy hand offends thee, cut it off." "May God give me strength with His terrible swift sword!" "That's it, sweetheart." "Just a little longer, and we'll have mustard and ketchup and mayonnaise galore." "Hey!" "What the hell are you doing?" "That gave you a lift, didn't it?" "Look, lady." "I give it." "I don't take it." "Give and take is a fact of life, like in and out, lover boy." "Well, you may like it in, but I want out when it comes to this kind of hanky-panky_" "What the hell is she cooking in there?" "A pot of Mexican jumping beans?" "I don't know." "We'd better go and see." "Hell, yeah." "I had my protein." "Now I want me some starch." "Aah!" "Aah!" "Tovdy, what the hell are you up to?" "!" "I was rubbing up the pubic hair with bacon fat." "Then she went crazy!" "Aah!" "If I could get control of this meat Cleaver, that's all you'd end up with down there is pubic hair!" "This is crazy!" "Stop it!" "Did you like that?" "Yes." "Then what's that tear doing on your cheek?" "It's tickling me, but I don't want to laugh because it's not a laughing matter." "What isn't?" "The whole Charade in this house of illusions." "You wanted to play this game, Sash." "It wasn't my idea." "I know." "To me, it's like going into those fun houses to look at ourselves through those distorted mirrors and everything is so ugly and grotesque." "But no one really minds because it's a fun house and you're supposed to have fun." "Everything's distorted in here." "But I don't care." "Just so long as I can clearly see the road to my mission." "And what road is that, Chandler?" "Highway 135 to Waco, Texas." "The road to that giant girdle factory with the neon lettering branding the Texas sky." "Branding it with fiery red letters that spell "House of Phillips Unlimited."" "Why would you want to go back to that place after the terrible tragedy that happened to your wife," "Sarah Lou Phillips?" "Because I want to forget Sarah Lou Phillips and her father, Leland Phillips, creator of the House of Phillips Unlimited." "But how can I, when they're still manufacturing those girdles by the tens of thousands?" "But hasn't the government put a stop to the production of those flammable things?" "Well, there's a movement in the courts now to halt production until the company chemists take out the volatile element." "But until that time, those giant wooden looms are still churning out those stretchable death traps." "Has Leland Phillips no heart?" "What of all the women who don't realize that they're purchasing a potentially deadly weapon?" "Leland Phillips is said to have a heart of gold, and it's true." "But they fail to mention that he's also got lungs of silver, a stomach of copper, and kidneys made out of tungsten." "There's not an authentic human organ in his entire decrepit body." "The man is a maniac living off the energy of the U.S. treasury, created by corporate capitalism." "Chandler, he sounds like a menace to the Sisterhood of women." "Oh, he's more than that." "He's a fiend that robbed me of my manhood." "Why do you think I deviate towards men?" "Some experts say that it's an imbalance in hormones." "No." "It's because practically every woman I undress is wearing a House of Phillips girdle." "Oh, God, no!" "Yes." "They just stand there by the edge of the bed, waiting for me to pull the rest of their clothes off." "And then they ask me what the hell am I staring at, as if I've never seen a girdle before." "Oh, Chandler." "Do you know how it feels to relive the most hideous moment of your life again and again?" "And then those half-naked women wonder why my face turns wet and why my eyes pop out of my head instead of something else popping out of my shorts." "But it doesn't pop out." "Not anymore." "Can you blame me for turning my back on women and giving what I have up front to men?" "No, darling, no, but what can free you of this crippling disorder?" "The destruction of the House of Phillips Unlimited." "All it would take is a Coca-Cola bottle filled with gasoline." "That's Dr. Pepper country down there." "Well, then, a Dr. Pepper bottle filled with gasoline." "And a fuse made from the fragment of a com petitor's product." "You mean a chunk of another girdle of a different brand name?" "That's right." "It'll make it all the more ritualistic and prophetic." "Chandler, let me go down Highway 135 with you." "To Waco, Texas." "To the House of Phillips Unlimited with its red neon sign branding the Texas sky with the mark of death." "Do you want to help me shatter that sign until it reads "The House of Phillips Limited"?" "And then just "The House," until finally there's no sign at all, just a massive flaming debris?" "Your mission in life is my mission." "I love you." "Be careful with that!" "It cost me an arm and a leg to upholster that chair!" "If an elephant walks in here, it's gonna be you that's going to be upholstered all over this house." "What is that thing in the jug down there?" "!" "It's like a man the remains of a man." "Who told you to go snooping around behind the shelves?" "You were just supposed to get the right vintage wine and bring it up for supper." "We're gonna be for supper if you don't stop chattering and start blocking those windows!" "What are you talking about?" "What's going on?" "It's not only the elephant out there." "I just saw a lion head straight for your chicken coop," "Mrs. Hammond." "Good Lord!" "Beulah and Pinky are in there!" "Who's Beulah and Pinky?" "They're my prize hens." "Come on." "Come on." "What the hell is all this?" "All this talk about elephants and lions and hens?" "You'd better add a gorilla to that list, too." "Well, Chandler, we don't know anything about it either, but there's a herd of dangerous animals out in that rain, and they ain't shopping for umbrellas." "Well, for your information, there's a corpse down there in the wine cellar floating in a jug of liquid!" "Ew." "Cut it out, Chandler." "I'm a nervous wreck as it is." "He's not kidding, Roo." "I was the first to see it." "What's your game, you stinking nut?" "It's called pickling." "What?" "!" "I pickle things to preserve them like onions, cauliflower, peppers." "And men?" "That's not just any man." "That's my husband!" "You're crazier than I thought you were." "Why?" "Because I refuse to cover the tangible remains of my husband with a curtain of soil?" "Yeah, but he was all eaten away, as if something had been gnawing away at his bones." "Didn't your mother ever teach you the proper way to pickle something?" "Oh, Sash, please." "I pickled him right." "That was the way he looked when he died." "They didn't leave much flesh on him, did they?" "Who's "they"?" "Who are you talking about?" "I'm talking about that buzzing cloud that came down from the Rockies on that awful Friday." "It was a Friday the 13th." "And it was noontime." "I was in the kitchen fixing some lunch for Charlie, who was working in the grain bin all morning." "It was a cheerful morning." "Only, there were no birds singing." "The birds had all flown away the night before." "Seemed like there was just me and Charlie and that hot noonday sun there on the farm." "And then it was just me and Charlie." "'Cause the sun disappeared in a buzzing, screaming shadow." "I looked out the window." "And I saw Charlie running from the grain bin, all white and covered with wheat powder." "He froze dead in his tracks as he looked up at the sky." "And that's when they swooped down on him, like a black hail of winged devils." "Locusts." "They covered my husband with a shroud of hungry mouths, each one chomping away like there was no tomorrow." "They also covered the field where he fell, until the whole earth looked like a pot of boiling caviar." "Oh, my God." "The wind caused by the beating of their wings had slammed the kitchen window shut." "And that's what probably saved my life." "I lay unconscious on that floor for a day and a night." "When I awoke, the morning sun was beginning to bleach the bones of my husband." "But locusts aren't supposed to eat people." "You're forgetting something." "She said her husband was all covered with wheat powder." "Wasn't there anyone around that could have helped?" "My son was in Borneo at the time." "I remember praying to God on that night after I awoke how grateful I was that my son had been spared the death that descended on his father." "Little was I to know that God was to have no mercy on my son, either, only a hideous, swelling vengeance." "Hey, there's a man out there." "A man?" "You'd better hurry up, Toydy, and open that door before the lion gets bored with his chicken dinner!" "Oh, my Beulah and Pinky!" "I'm so sorry." "Shut the door." "Quick!" "Oh!" "Don't worry about that, mister." "I hate zoos myself." "Those ain't the tenants of a zoo, Mack." "You all right?" "Those specimens out there are under contract to Phineas Harlan." "You mean the circus impresario?" "The one and only." "Well, what are they doing running around outside door-to-door advertising?" "No, I lost control of my truck." "She went over the embankment about 50 yards from the bridge and rolled over into the mud." "You mean the bridge is out?" "No, my truck." "The bridge is still there." "Above water?" "High and dry." "Then maybe we can get out of here and hit Highway 135?" "No way, sister." "Not with all those four-legged buggers running around." "It's not the quadrupeds that are dangerous." "It's that gargantuan biped." "What the hell is a biped?" "You're a biped, dummy." "Now, look, Chandler, I don't mind you calling me a dummy, but don't be calling me any dirty Italian names." "A biped is a creature with two legs!" "You mean the gorilla I saw?" "He's the dangerous one?" "Uh-huh." "Yeah." "Phineas Harlan pulled all the teeth out of the lion's mouth and he pulled the claws out." "The circus is a fake, a waste of money!" "You mean that lion's harmless?" "As harmless as a toothless old lady." "Well, I don't know if I agree with that saying, young man." "Mrs. Connor has no teeth, yet she blasted her husband with six rounds of buckshot last spring." "Why don't you go take a walk and find something to pickle?" "I almost had me a real nice pickle if only you hadn't jumped away." "Let's cut the bickering, huh?" "Now we have a very dangerous situation here." "Only, if I understand you right, mister..." "Call me Bing." "All right, Bing." "But if I understand you right, then the situation really is not that grave." "Do you have to use that word -- "grave"?" "Oh, my God." "All I've been hearing in this house is talk of death." "What about that elephant out there?" "Minnie's so old, she's practically blind." "Minnie's got to use her trunk like a silver cane." "So, then, it's just the gorilla that's dangerous?" "Don't minimize the danger, Mack." "Medusa didn't get that name for nothing." "One look at those blazing red eyes surrounded by that black matted hair can freeze a man to a block of stone on the spot." "She made me hard one night." "Well, what's she after?" "Bananas." "Come again?" "She's crazy about bananas." "Well, aren't we all?" "Is that all she wants, bananas?" "No." "No." "She's..." "She wants..." "She needs sex." "You'd think that Phineas whatever his name is would get her a mate." "She doesn't like other gorillas." "They're too hairy." "Medusa likes the naked, virile flesh of young men." "And how, pray tell, did she get a taste for that?" "That's unimportant now!" "Wait a second." "Wait just one minute." "You said she got you hard one night." "What the hell did you mean by that?" "Look, I don't like being grilled by the cops or anyone else!" "Speaking of grilled, I'd better check on those pork chops." "Excuse me, please." "Look, mister." "We're no angels, and we have weird tastes, too." "What's so weird about pork chops?" "I wasn't talking about pork chops!" "I was talking about you and that big, black, red-eyed female out there!" "Toydy, that female is a gorilla." "Shut up, Sash, and let him finish." "He's got something there." "Well, you ought to know, being that you had it in your hand a couple hours ago." "Now, just a minute, Miss Wine Cellar Virgin." "Don't you go talking back to me, or I'm gonna spill the beans." "We're not having beans tonight!" "We're having corn on the cob." "You know where you can shove that corn on the cob," "Mrs. Hammond!" "Shut up, everybody, and let me finish!" "I have a score to settle with this little cellar tramp!" "You're talking about the woman I love." "You, Chandler, and that woman?" "Surprised, muscles?" "You didn't think I had it in me, huh?" "I sort of knew you didn't have it in you for a long time." "Maybe that's why you were messing with her." "Because you didn't put it in me back there in the car?" "Well, I was sort of edgy." "But I'm not edgy anymore." "Thanks to Sash." "No, of course not." "She manages to take the sharp edge off everything, don't you, Sash?" "You can't threaten me anymore, Roo." "I don't care what you say." "For the first time in my life, I'm in love with a man." "You sure about his credentials?" "I'm in love with a man." "Well, it sure beats a cactus, don't it, Sash?" "What are you two talking about?" "You wanted to know why she had a red butt when we lived in Tucson, didn't you, Toydy?" "Go ahead, Roo." "I'm not afraid." "Yeah, go ahead." "I'd like to know how she got a red butt." "It's because..." "It's because it was lonely there in Tucson, and she was as horny as a desert lizard." "And there was nothing for miles around but cactus, a forest of juicy, stumpy cactus that rose 9 inches high into the desert air." "Why, it was so boring, that Sash over here would pull up those cactus with ice tongs and sit for hours plucking out the needles with her silver tweezers." "Only, you couldn't get them all out, could you, Sash?" "Yes, I could." "I got them all out." "The doctor said that the rash in my buttocks was caused by a type of chlorophyll poisoning." "And she got that rash by gyrating for hours on the stumpy shaft of a Tucson cactus." "How come there was no red rash further down, like on the private parts?" "Because her private parts were reserved for that stuffed Gila monster her father kept on the mantel." "Are you disappointed in me, Chandler?" "How could I be disappointed in the woman I love?" "Well, all right." "Now that you've got that off your chest and out of your buttocks, what next?" "What the heck is going on here?" "Is this some sort of communal therapy group?" "Is that what this is?" "!" "Well, I'd have to be speaking only for myself if I said that it was." "Well, whose turn is it now?" "Who's gonna pull their skeleton out of their closet and pull them out of the moth balls?" "I was kind of hoping it would be Gert, seeing as how she hasn't unlocked that door over there." "Gert's already bared her soul." "And don't go mentioning moth balls or skeletons or any other type of bug when she comes in." "Well, I bared myself." "Oh, you did?" "When?" "Back there under the staircase." "Bond and I indulged in a little soul searching." "Didn't we, honey?" "It didn't take you long to find what you were looking for." "That's because your zipper didn't get stuck." "Let's skip the details, shall we?" "Sure." "There's no sense in getting them to licking their chops before the real chops are out of the oven." "Where's Willene?" "I don't know, but last time I seen her, she was sitting on the floor swooning over the voice of her master." "Check that crazy bedroom down the hall." "While the cat's away, the mice do play, even if the cat howls over the radio once in a while." "Well, I guess it's your turn, Bing." "My turn to what?" "Bare your soul." "Oh, phooey." "Couldn't he bare something a little more external?" "I'll drink to that." "Well, get yourself a glass." "Get me one, too." "Get your own." "This house is full of liquor glasses." "What did she call this place?" "I heard her say something like Prairie Blossom." "Lush Gardens would be more fitting." "Here you are, my friend." "You're gonna need this." "To what, bare my soul?" "Just consider it a form of psychological enema." "Shh!" "Don't say that word!" "Old Gert will come running in with a rubber garden hose!" "How thrilling!" "Well, if you like things like that, honey, maybe I can get Minnie the elephant to grope around in your peanut bag." "My bags been getting some nuts, honey, but they ain't been peanut sized." "Where were they?" "They from the kid?" "Jealous?" "Mnh-mnh." "Just hungry." "Well, we'll be having pork chops soon and corn on the cob." "But first, let's sink our teeth into your background, Bing." "Come on." "Why don't you tell us about Minnie, and Medusa, and..." "Samson." "Yeah." "The lion's named Samson." "He had the strength of 10 men until, like the biblical hero, they clipped his toenails and his teeth." "You said they took out his teeth?" "That's a terrible thing to do." "Sometimes men wish mine were gone, but that's another story." "A dirty one." "Minnie is clean." "And so is Samson." "What about Medusa? I " " I made Medusa dirty." "Did you tell your husband about all this hocus-pocus?" "My husband is a religious man, and he's doing all he can to rid my body of this curse." "How?" "By not copulating with me until Sister Geneva flushes out the vileness with her elephant syringe." "Holy cow!" "You mean you let some nun stick an elephant syringe in your organ while your husband beats his meat and waits?" "My husband does not beat his meat." "He fluctuates his firmness." "Sister Geneva told us before we were married that we'd have to wait until she could perform this ritual." "Oh, she did, did she?" "Well, we could use that old dyke and her syringe just in case Minnie gets constipated tonight." "Who's Minnie?" "Didn't you hear that elephant trumpeting out in the storm?" "There's wild animals out there, Willene." "Aren't there enough of them here in this house?" "Is that what you consider me, an animal?" "I consider you all debased by yearnings of the flesh." "Do you see that vile object over there?" "You mean that dildo with a fork in it?" "I picked up that object 'cause it was lying in the hall as a stimulus to deviltry." "Am I a devil?" "You're an animal." "And you're still a virgin after how long?" "Three years." "Sister Geneva's trying to hurry it up, but it takes a long time." "Three years." "Bride to an elephant syringe." "Sister Geneva was a bride of Jesus." "Jesus didn't have no bride, just widows in black with a green elephant syringe." "It was pink." "Oh." "Well, you're right about one thing." "What?" "What was I right about?" "I am an animal." "What kind?" "A rhinoceros!" "Can't you tell by my horn?" "What are you gonna do with it?" "I'm gonna prove to you that your womanhood will not be fruitless." "That the tree of your body will not be barren next spring." "Oh, Sister Mercy, forgive me, for I know not what I do." "The tree of your body may be losing a cherry, but it's gaining two plums and a banana!" "And so needing a job and having a great fondness for animals led me into accepting a position in Phineas Harlan's circus." "Did you enjoy the circus?" "I enjoyed working with the animals." "It was the people I hated." "You mean your co-workers?" "Them and the audience." "You see, the animals' fatness was a result of confinement rather than gluttony." "Yeah, sure." "But what about you and that gorilla?" "I was coming to that." "You see, my co-workers were very fond of practical jokes." "So, one night, on my 31st birthday, they got me drunk during the celebration." "Stinking drunk." "That's a shame!" "A shame you weren't there." "You like animals so much you'd really get off on that booze hound." "Do you want me to continue or do you just feel like making wisecracks all night?" "I'm sorry." "Go on." "Like I was saying, I was real drunk." "And since we had been on the road for two weeks," "I was horny as hell." "My friends said that they had lined up a hooker for me and that she was behind the calliope in a tent." "I staggered across the muddy fairgrounds, tossing my clothes off as I approached the two tents." "I was seeing double by that time." "One of my friends got on the Calliope, and there was all this music as I tore open the tent flap and jumped upon the thing in the sleeping bag." "I knew she was black and that her skin was kind of puffy and she smelled funny, but I didn't care after two weeks on the road." "Two weeks of driving past billboards with their bikini-clad models holding up suntan lotions." "There was something jangling on her wrist and feet, but I could hardly hear because of the loud Calliope music." "Anyhow, I thought they were bracelets like you're wearing." "They weren't?" "The morning light revealed their true nature." "They were chains that held down the gorilla." "Someone had shaven her from head to foot." "Dear Lord!" "We lay there in the dim light, her black stubby fingers around my pecker." "Then she turned that massive pointed head toward me and bared those giant, yellow teeth in a smile of affection." "I screamed!" "I screamed so loud that every creature in the circus went wild in their cages." "Maintenance men found me lying by the Calliope trying to sing "l Love You Truly."" "Medusa was lying there in the sleeping bag massaging her breasts." "They said it took four men from the loony bin to carry me away." "You were put under observation?" "For a whole week." "Then I was set free, and I went back to work." "Only, this time, Medusa was observing me every second." "And she'd make little lewd gestures with her toes." "Made my flesh crawl." "So, why is she so dangerous if she loves you that much?" "Her love was forcibly repressed by the bars of her cage." "When she realized she wasn't getting anywhere with me, she tried making love to sef\or Tostada, her trainer." "He beat her with his whip, and she became enraged." "Senior Tostada was literally torn limb from limb." "His arms and legs had been tossed 15 feet into the air andlanded into the concession stand, falling into a bin of popcorn." "And they found his head tossed not far away, embedded in the cotton-candy machine." "Aren't animals as dangerous as that destroyed?" "Phineas Harlan couldn't destroy Medusa." "His wife loved that ape." "When he had brought the baby Medusa from the jungle, it was sick and near death." "Mrs. Harlan nursed it with the milk from her own breasts." "On that hideous morning when it was found shaven and chained in the tent, it was Mrs. Harlan who donated her mink coat to Medusa so she wouldn't catch pneumonia." "A mother's love is the strongest thing in the world." "Like those chains that held down the gorilla." "So, what happened?" "The gorilla was kept on in the circus?" "Having tasted the flesh and then the blood of men," "Medusa became a murderous psychopath obeying only Mrs. Harlan." "She later put on Seior Tostada's boots and whip and a leopard bikini." "And then Mrs. Harlan took control of it." "Well, then, we women here tonight are safe if that gorilla only goes ape over men." "No, you're not." "You see, the relationship soured rather quickly when Mrs. Harlan got into the ring." "Why was that?" "The bikini." "Mrs. Harlan was going on 59 years of age." "Her flesh was bloated and sagging considerably." "When she ran out into the arena, the audience screamed their disapproval at her." "She was always visibly shaken by the reception, and she began to take out her feelings on Medusa." "By the whip?" " Yes." "She was like a female Captain Bligh." "And in tent number 3," "Mrs. Courtney Harlan and Medusa!" "Then, one night, under the big top in Dayton, Ohio," "Medusa grabbed hold of the whip and pulled Mrs. Harlan within reach." "She stripped off the old lady's bikini in front of the horrified crowd." "I don't know what they were more horrified at -- the enraged gorilla or Mrs. Harlan's completely naked body." "In any case, the gorilla tied one end of the whip around her neck, and then grabbing on to the other end," "Medusa whirled her around up high in the air." "Then the gorilla let go of that whip and that blasted, bloated body went sailing over the cage and hit the tent and bounced back and dropped into the arena where the dancing hippos were in ring number 2." "Were the hippos dancing at the time?" "Yes." "The Mexican Hat Dance." "Young man, I took a heck of a long time preparing this meal." "Now, don't go ruining it for us." "I'm just about finished." "There's not much more to say." "And yet, after all these tragedies, the gorilla was still allowed to perform?" "Killing old lady Harlan was the best thing that Medusa could have done for Phineas Harlan." "He was now rolling in insurance money." "Her act was kept on " "The one with Medusa was kept on, but it was downgraded considerably." "Her feet were chained to a garishly painted platform." "A semi-naked woman was hired to throw hula hoops on her." "Medusa was taught to mimic the woman's hip movement so that the hula hoops would twirl." "From the way that gorilla looked at me," "I knew exactly what she was thinking while she was gyrating." "And so you say bananas are the only thing that diverts her mind from rape and murder?" "Yes, it's uncanny." "And so are these vegetables." "These are fresh vegetables from my garden, not from a can." "So, come on." "Eat up and stop your talking." "Why are you looking at that door, Toydy?" "It's locked, and I'm curious." "Curiosity killed the cat." "A cat's a pussy, and I'm no pussy!" "No." "But when the time comes for you to be one," "I'm sure you'll make do with what you have." "Where's Bond?" "His food's getting cold." "So is Willene's." "Don't worry about Bond." "I bet his friction is making his meat real hot." "I suppose you're right." "And as for Willene, there's nothing like a good pounding to get your chops tenderized." "You'll never find more tender chops than these." "No, but there's no harm in looking." "Wasn't that better than an elephant syringe?" "Oh, it sure was." "It wasn't so much air pumped in my body." "You mean there's just air in that syringe?" "No, there was seltzer and milk of magnesia, but then Seltzer got too expensive, and she started using Fizzies." "Fizzies?" "What's that?" "Oh, it's kind of a bubbling Kool-Aid." "Mnh." "You want I should inject you with some more of my special cocktail mix?" "Sure." "Go ahead, baby." "The shaker's all ready." "I love you, Bond!" "What about your Songbird husband?" "Oh, he's hit a sour note." "Divorce is a messy business, Willene." "Oh, there doesn't have to be one." "Marriage can be annulled on the grounds that it hasn't been consummated." "I don't know about that." "That syringe has opened you up pretty wide." "My brother Edgar, the lawyer who lives in Kansas City with his wife, Flora, and their two children, ages 9 and 13." "My brother Edgar could win me that case." "He'd just tell them while I was working at Flaherty's Bakery," "I accidentally squatted on a loaf on French bread." "Oh!" "Oh!" "Tell me!" "Say it!" "I need a woman as big and wide as you." "Everyone else, it's like squeezing into a pinhole." "Oh, and I need you." "You probably about the closest in size I'll ever find to replace that elephant syringe." "Working up some gravy to squirt on your mashed potatoes?" "Yeah, they're kind of dry." "Any objections to putting cream gravy on baked potatoes?" "Yeah, especially when they got their jackets on." "Is that better?" "They're kind of starchy." "Why don't you just beat it?" "Well, take your hand away from it and I will." "You don't excite me, Roo." "Why not?" "You and me, we're too much alike." "We're two of a kind and negative charges don't attract each other." "I don't consider myself as negative." "Well, that's what I am -- a great, big, fat minus sign." "Well, you can say that again." "Will this change your mind?" "Where were those keys?" "I found them in the kitchen when I went to get the horseradish." "I bet you one of them opens that locked door in the living room." "Give me those keys!" "Not till I get some gravy, baby." "You want an equal amount on each potato?" "Forget about potatoes." "Just concentrate on this piece of boiled tongue." "Give it to me." "Give me those keys." "Here they are, and it's very well deserved." "Perhaps you'll change your mind about me." "In what way?" "Birds of a feather stick together." "I'm not ready to build no nest." "But when I do, I don't want it to be foul." "I can take an insult and a hint." "But I don't give up so easily." "Oh, Bond." "Take me away from here." "I've got a car, money, and a body, and they're all yours." "Maybe I can get you a job in my husband's publicity department stamping his signature on all those 8xlos." "Stamping his signature?" "I thought you told me they were all hand signed?" "Well, they are." "But you'll be needing a job pretty soon, and that's the only labor I can think of at the moment." "You're good to me, Willene." "Nobody's ever offered me so much for so little." "What you offered me wasn't little." "Let's get dressed and go eat dinner so we can depart on a full stomach." "There's complications out there in the rain, Willene." "Well, if you truly love me, you will guide us past them." "From now on, you're the captain of the ship I call my life." "Oh!" "I didn't know there was anyone standing there." "Couldn't you smell the pork chops?" "Yeah." "We didn't smell the rat." "Boy, that sounds like our lovesick Chandler." "There's nothing sick about love." "Come on." "Just a minute, muscles." "I want to talk to you!" "I'll be right with you, Willene." "Start eating without me!" "Do you want to get out of this place with that woman?" "Have you been spying on us?" "Spying?" "That's an old story for this room." "Now, listen to me, and shut up!" "The only way you and that girlfriend of yours are gonna get out of here is by flinging bananas at that gorilla to distract him." "Who told you that?" "That guy at the circus." "He wasn't kidding." "That gorilla is a sex-crazed killer!" "Well, what's that got to do with me?" "Well, don't you and that little lady want to get out of here?" "Yeah, very much." "She loves me." "That's sweet and touching." "It just so happens that I've got a crate of bananas." "Where the heck did you get a crate of bananas from?" "I had two crates, but I burned one up in a car accident." "I was hitchhiking to Sioux City, and I swiped them off this truck." "But I'll let you in on it, though." "I'll give you the bananas, for a price." "You know I got no money." "All your wealth is in your body." "And I want your body." "You drive a real hard bargain." "That's just what I want to do." "I want to drive it real hard into you." "Listen, give me a second to think it over, huh, Toydy?" "Why don't you loosen your trousers up and give yourself a little more room to think?" "You've told us about a whole assortment of people, Bing." "But you've told us nothing about yourself." "Get off my back, mister." "He's not trying to get on it, not after meeting me." "I think you're holding something back." "Listen, young fellow!" "If the food didn't agree with you," "I got a toilet just down the hallway." "Now, don't be shy." "Come on, Bing!" "Let's have it out now!" "Not in my living room, you don't!" "Gert, please." "I'm eating!" "Let's have it, Bing." "All right, God damn it!" "All right!" "It wasn't an accident!" "I ran that truck off the road on purpose!" "But why?" "Because I couldn't see those animals suffer anymore and me along with them." "Suicide?" "Yes." "We were on our way to St. Barnaby's School for Crippled Children." "In Nebraska City?" "That's right!" "Have you ever been there when the circus was in town?" "!" "Did you ever see the kids poking at the animals with their crutches?" "!" "Have you ever seen an ostrich run down by a wheelchair?" "!" "Did you ever hear what it sounds like to hear a tiger's head crushed by the blows of a broken arm in a cast?" "!" "Lord have mercy!" "If it was an attempt at a mercy killing, why did you try and kill yourself, as well?" "Because God help me!" "I have the hots for that gorilla!" "No woman has ever satisfied me like she has." "Lord have mercy on your soul." "I've tried to forget her, but I can't." "It's killing me." "I want her." "Yeah, I know that it's wrong." "Easy, kid!" "Easy!" "They say that all is fair in love and war." "Take it from there." "Sash, give him another drink." "I'm gonna go check on Bond." "Here, you tortured soul." "Drink this up with the knowledge that you may be the beauty to soothe that savage beast." "Well, kid." "What's the answer?" "You better use this." "I had a feeling it would come in handy sometime." "Hey, take it easy, will you, Toydy?" "Remember, I'm used to giving it, not getting it." "The slower the better, beautiful." "You should really wait at least two hours after eating before indulging in any vigorous exercise." "Get the hell out of here, Chandler!" "Not on your life, Bond." "I've been waiting a long, long time for this one." "Here." "Have a whiff of this." "It may get you more into the festivities." "You said you wanted to hear about my wife's love life, didn't you, Bond?" "Yeah." "Sure." "Tell me." "My wife, Sarah Lou Phillips, used to have me undress alone in the living room with the lights off." "And then she'd have me fold myself up into the Castro Convertible that her mother had bought us." "And then she'd want me to close myself in like a human sardine sandwich." "Sound good, doesn't it, Bond?" "Oh, yeah." "Great!" "That's great." "Then she'd come in, turn on the light, unfold the Castro Convertible, and there'd be a parakeet on her finger." "Then, when I was stiff from all the massaging, she'd have me kneel on the bed." "And she'd bring the parakeet over and put it on my pecker as if it were a perch." "Go faster, Chandler!" "Faster!" "Hurry up." "Hurry up!" "I feel a punch line coming!" "Then she'd lay on her back, underneath my pecker, lay on her back with her mouth open." "Go ahead!" "Go ahead!" "And then the goddamn parakeet drops a stool into her mouth, and she swallowed it!" "Ugh!" "Bond!" "What's the meaning of this?" "I was just receiving our passport out of this place." "If that kind of passport sends you, then I'm afraid you're just gonna have to go along without me." "The crate's all yours, kid!" "I'm sorry to see you go." "No more sorry than I am to see you come." "What crate are you talking about?" "There's a crate of bananas behind the sofa." "Your boyfriend bargained his butt off for that fruit." "It's usually the other way around." "Fruits are always bargaining off their butts for me." "Well, I'm glad I was here for the historic occasion." "Well, Willene, now all you and Bond have to do is run out those doors with the crate of bananas." "And if the gorilla follows, then just toss him a bunch." "You did that for me?" "That's no big deal." "Besides, I need that job." "I saw Toydy's naked body, so don't go telling me it wasn't any big deal." "There's no greater love that a man can show a woman than to give his body to the enemy." "Ah, come on, Willene." "I had to get broken in sometime." "This way, if things don't work out with you, maybe something will click with your husband." "It's a good thing I had it stashed away in the attic." "The smell of mothballs is stifling." "If you think that's strong, wait until you smell Medusa." "What the hell is going on here?" "That's my wedding dress, Chandler." "There's going be a marriage at Prairie Blossom." "Don't you think we'd better cut the top off, Gert, so that when she comes in, she won't mistake him for a woman?" "Well, who's she?" "I'm a he." "I know what you are, Bing, but who's the she that's coming in?" "Tell me when to open the door." "Open the door for who?" "The gorilla." "Evidently, true love cannot be quashed by religious or traditional taboos." "Bing has expressed his love for the gorilla." "And she, in turn, has pursued him across four continents and will not be tamed until she gets him." "I can sympathize with her." "So, when everything is ready, we'll all " "Hey, everybody!" "There is something scraping and snorting by the outside door." "That's it." "We'll all hide in the shadows, and I'll go out and open the outside door." "And then, when the ape sees Bing standing in the brightly lit doorway with white clothes on, she'll come in." "And that's when we all run out!" "What about those goddamn bananas?" "I've got a crate of bananas." "After she sees Bing, she won't need them." "Bing's top banana." "I'll believe that when I see it." "The bananas can remain here as a wedding gift, if you wish." "You really gave me the shaft, Mack." "The pleasure was all mine." "And what about you, Gert?" "Where are you going to run to?" "I'm running nowhere." "It's been a long time since this house has seen happiness and love." "Once, these walls did echo with the gayest of laughter." "But that was when my husband was alive and my son existed." "It is my honor now to be hostess to a courageous man and the animal he loves and who also shares his sentiment." "She's in no danger as long as Medusa sees me first." "After I've given myself to the gorilla again," "I expect great psychological transformations to occur in the skull of that primate." "You'll see." "Get back in there with those others." "Whatever loot she's hiding in here is mine." "Like hell it is." "If I hadn't gone in the kitchen for that horseradish, you never would have got those keys." "Look, you got your horseradish and you got an extra helping of creamed gravy." "What the hell else do you want?" "A chicken in every pot and creamed gravy seven nights a week." "I found it." "I found the key!" "I found it!" "Aah!" "You see, there's really no sense in fighting if you only live once." "Oh, it will be a pleasure to cater to your honeymoon with bananas, bonbons, and a change of linens!" "Oh!" "Lay low!" "Lay low!" "His testicles are enormous!" "Who was that'?" "!" "He who does not exist." "Let me out!" "Let me out!" "Let me out of here!" "God have mercy!" "Oh, my God!" "It's her!" "The gorilla!" "She busted down the door!" "Oh, Chandler!" "What do we do?" "!" "When she smashes her way in, we'll make a dash for freedom." "Will you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?" "Run!" "In sickness and in health." "Till death do us part." "I told a lie." "A little white lie." "You see, he does exist behind this door." "But not out here in the world of sanity." "Behold thy marriage chamber and thy mate for eternity." "The parasites that have sucked the juices from your body have not all belonged to the insect population." "Many shrewd businessmen have fattened their wallets by exhibiting your animalism." "It's not my wallet that I want fattened." "It's you." "Fattened with our first child." "Our first newborn child." "The first of a race of supermen." "For God's sake have mercy!" "God has no mercy!" "You see what he's done to my son!" "Gerald had gone to Borneo to collect some erotic artifacts." "That was all -- a harmless excursion into the steaming tropics in the name of art." "But he was smitten with a vile and swelling tropical disorder." "A malignancy of glandular grotesqueness that struck at the very root of his manhood." "You see him now at the pinnacle of his disorder, repulsive to both man and woman alike." "And what is more important -- repulsive to himself." "So self-revolting, his mind became unbalanced." "Knowing that the one thing that made his life worth living was being crushed by the weight of his own testicles." "For his safety and mine and for the safety of Beulah and Pinky," "I had to lock him up behind this door!" "The weight of that malignancy on our fragile bodies would have crushed the very life out of us." "You two are strong." "You'll survive." "You'll give Gerald a taste of the sweetness that was once his whole life." "You'll survive." "And I pity you!" "The storm is over, and God has given me the sun and you on this, the first morning of our lives." "Now, don't you go putting all your eggs in one basket," "Willene." "I've got my hand in your basket, and it feels nice and firm." "Yeah?" "I'm not worried about no eggs." "Well, just as long as you don't go losing your marbles over me." "I'm young, and I'm restless." "And I'm not to be trusted." "A lot of energy in this body, Willene, and it hops around from bed to bed like a flea." "To be bit by a Iovebug like me could be a pretty scratchy situation." "I don't care, my love." "All I ask is that when I start itching, you start scratching." "Bond?" "Yes?" "I'm starting to itch." "Where do you want me to scratch?" "The rain is stopping, Chandler." "Perhaps the road to Texas will not be muddy." "Do you see that sliver of rosy light over there?" "That's where we're going, Sash." "We're getting out of the mud and into a bed of roses." "That rosy light is the dawn, Chandler." "Texas is to the south, not east." "My heart is towards the east, towards the glow of a new day -- a day without vengeance and a day without hate." "Will your heart lead you to that bed of roses, or are you relying on your nose?" "I'm relying on the sign we just passed." "Rose Haven Motel, 6 miles east down Route 18." "That's where we'll find our bed, Sash." "I'm pouring myself a drink, Charlie!" "Only, it ain't to forget my loneliness." "We have company now." "And the house is full of human voices." "Like it was 15 years ago." "There are also the voices of the inhuman and those that suffer." "But they suffer no more." "Ahh!" "Remind me to go shopping today for some chopped meat, vegetables, milk, and honey." "And I'll need at least three dozen bananas and some heads of lettuce." "And, of course, my cucumbers." "I mustn't forget my cucumbers." "People come and go, but the cucumbers must stay." "Join me in a toast, Charlie." "A toast to love and happiness." "And to a life that won't go sour and turn every cucumber into a pickle." "Fixed  Synced By MoUsTaFa ZaKi"