Happy Birthday, Wanda June Page #6

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SHUTTLE:

(calling)

Penelope! We're late!

PENELOPE:

(off, in master

bedroom suite)

Coming.

SHUTTLE:

(to PAUL)

Women are always late. You'll find

out.

WOODLY:

(thoughtfully)

The late Mrs. Harold Ryan.

SHUTTLE:

I'm sick of this argument. I just

have one more thing to say: If you

elect a President, you support him,

no matter what he does. That's the

only way you can have a country!

WOODLY:

It's the planet that's in ghastly

trouble now and all our brothers

and sisters thereon.

SHUTTLE:

None of my relatives are Chinese

Communists. Speak for yourself.

WOODLY:

Chinese maniacs and Russian maniacs

and American maniacs and French

maniacs and British maniacs have

turned this lovely, moist,

nourishing blue-green ball into a

doomsday device. Let a radar set

and a computer mistake a hawk or a

meteor for a missile, and that's

the end of mankind.

SHUTTLE:

You can believe that if you want.

I talk to guys like you, and I want

to commit suicide.

(to PAUL)

You get that weight-lifting set I

sent you?

PAUL:

It came yesterday. I haven't

opened it yet.

WOODLY:

(musingly, attempting

to find the idea

acceptable, even

funny, in a way)

Maybe it's supposed to end now.

Maybe God wouldn't have it any

other way.

SHUTTLE:

(to PAUL)

Start with the smallest weights.

Every week add a pound or two.

WOODLY:

Maybe God has let everybody who

ever lived be reborn--so he or she

can see how it ends. Even

Pithecanthropus erectus and

Australopithecus and Sinanthropus

pekensis and the Neanderthalers are

back on Earth--to see how it ends.

They're all on Times Square--making

change for peepshows. Or recruiting

Marines.

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