Definitely not. I am paying the rent, I will make-a-da rules. I like to take showers every morning and I don’t like the panties drying on the rod. I like to cook so I will use the kitchen whenever I damn well please and I am very particular about my condiments so, keep your salt and pepper to yourself. I also play the guitar in the middle of the night whenever I cannot sleep and I meditate every morning complete with chanting and burning incense so if you’ve got to walk around I’d appreciate a little tip-toeing. Also, I sleep in the nude. Au buffo. Winter and summer, rain or snow with the windows open and because I may have to go to the potty or to the fridge in the middle of the night and because I don’t want to put on jammies which I do not own in the first place… unless you’re looking for a quick thrill or your daughter an advanced education I would keep my door closed. Thems my rules and regulations, how does that grab you?
Well, that’s probably why we were thrown together. One of God’s little jests. Now if you will move your shapely little fanny out of my room I will unpack and dry my beard. Miss McFadden, you forgt to say goodnight.
You know I liked you from the first time I met you when you answered the door. I said to myself, “This is the best half-a-face I ever saw!”
I don’t blame you for being hostile. I think I get the picture. Tony rented me the apartment and split with the money, right? Then you and your daughter got dumped on.
Out of where? Out of my rented apartment that you are staying in out of the goodness of my heart? I will bring home anyone or anthing that I choose, including a one-eyed Episcopalian kangaroo if that happens to be my kinky inclination. As for what is going on in there we’re rehearsing Act 1, Scene 4 from Richard the Third. I happen to have a cretin from Mars directing this play and I need all the help I can get. However, if I choose to attempt to have carnal knowledge of that gorgeous bod that’ll be her option, my problem and none of your business! And just for the record what do you think little Lucy’s impression of what was going on in Mama’s bedroom with Tony “Love ’em & leave ’em” DeForrest, huh? Hey Mac! Why don’t you turn out some of these lights? We’re running up a heck of a bill.
Will you listen very, very carefully to me just for one… uh, this may be the last time I ever speak to you. Not everyone in this world is after your magnificent body, lady. In the first place it’s not so magnificent. It, it’s fair, alright? But it’s not keeping me up nights thinking about it, you know? I don’t even think you’re very pretty. Maybe if you smiled once in a while okay but I don’t want you to do anything against your religion. And you are not the only person in this city ever to get dumped on! I, myself, am a recent dumpee. I am a dedicated actor, Paula, you know? I am dedicated to my art and my craft, I value what I do. And because of a mentally arthritic director I am about to play the second greatest role in the history of the English speaking theater like a double order of fresh California fruit salad. When I say nice I mean nice, you know? Decent and fair. I deserve it. Because I’m a nice decent and fair person, I don’t want to jump on your bones. I don’t even want to see you in the morning. But I will tell you one thing I do like about you Paula. Lucy. Lucy’s your best part. Lucy is worth putting up with you for. So here is 14 dollars for the care and feeding of that terrific kid. You get zippidy-do-da. You want any money? Borrow it from your 10 year old daughter. I am now going inside my room to meditate away my hostility toward you. Personally, I don’t think it can be done!
Mrs. McFadden, I am a person of health. I do not put unnatural things in my body. Music is one of nature’s sedatives. If you would just listen to it instead of fighting it, we would all be asleep in five minutes. However, if you insist, take two sleeping pills and stick one in each ear.
I was “an Elizabethan fruit fly.” I was “the Betty Boop of Stratford-on-Avon.” I was “putrid.” Capital P, capital U, capital TRID.
I just called the 37th precinct. There is no Charles D’Agastino in Homicide. Then I called Rita Scott, an old actress friend of mine who was in “The Merchant of Venice” this year with the ever-popular Tony DeForest. Rita told me all about this girl Tony’s living with. A certain Paula McFadden, a former dancer and her ten-year-old daughter Lucy. She also told me that the apartment is leased in the name of Tony DeForest. She knows this for a fact because she used to live with Tony, the smoothie, prior to Paula and Lucy. Now can we continue this conversation in a drier room, Ms. McFadden?
Don’t hang up. Please, don’t hang up. I don’t have any more change, I’m soaked to the bone, Miss McFadden and I have a very low threshold for disease. Look, I don’t know what Tony told you, but he’s got my money, I got a lease, and you got the apartment. Now, one of us got screwed. Uh, let me rephrase that. We need to talk this out, and I am in no condition, financial or health-wise, to look for a hotel in the pouring rain. I mean, if there’s any such thing as the 78th-street flu, I think I’ve got it.
Five minutes. That’s all I’m asking. What is it? Now look, in about 30 seconds, we’re going to get cut off, Miss McFadden. My number is 873-5261, it’s a flooded booth on Amsterdam Avenue. If you have any compassion in your heart whatsoever… I’m trying to work it out, operator. Any compassion in your heart whatsoever, you’ll call me back. 873-5261. That number again is 873-52… oh, shit.
If you were a Broadway musical, people would be humming your face.
My careereth is over. I am making a horseth asseth of myselfeth. Mark, I’m begging you. I’m begging you. You want this kind of performance? Let me play Lady Anne.
Unhappy? No. I am freaking petrified. The critics are going to crucify me, Mark. And Gay Liberation is going to hang me from Shakespear’s statue. By my genitalia. You gotta help me, Mark.
I want my hump back! I want my club foot. I want a little paralysis in my right hand! I don’t mean a lot, just a little, two stiff fingers, I need a little motivation.
Listen, what do I know? I’m lucky to get the part I know that. I come from Chicago. We do things a little bit differently out there. We do the play as written. That doesn’t go over in New York? Terrific. I respect you, Mark, I do. You’ve done off Broadway I haven’t. I’m not a quitter. You want me to do Richard the Third like Tatum O’Neal I’ll do it but just don’t make me look foolish out there.
Just let me say this out loud alright? I mean, I don’t really believe this myself. Number one, I’m starting work in the morning and I have no place to sleep tonight. Number two, you don’t have any money and you’ve got my apartment. Also you have your daughter to think about.
Miss McFadden, this morning I start rehearsals for my very first New York play. Probably the most important day of my life. Am I nervous? No, I am not nervous. Because I have meditated I am relaxed, I am calm, I am confident. You, on the other hand, have not meditated. Therefore you are a pain in the ass.
Granola, wheat germ, soya, lecithin, natural honey. My body is a temple, Miss McFadden, and I am worshiping it. It’s what gives me my energy, my vitality and my natural disposition. I’m sixty-three years old Miss McFadden and look at me. May I fix you a bowl?
You are forgetting that this is my apartment. You are living here on an Elliot Garfield grant. You really ought to try some of this, you know? It’s got whole bran in it. My feeling is that your whole problem stems from irregularity.
Hey! I think I have a clue now as to why all those other guys left. Crackers! Animal Crackers lady! You’ve got a severe case of emotional retardation. I’m not leaving Paula, I’m escaping.
But just in passing I’d like to say that last night was teriffic, okay? It was the Super Bowl of romance. I give it a fat nine on a scale of ten. You lose one point for burping your wine but all in all it’s still a very respectable score.
You want to lower your neurosis for just one second I’m not finished. You want to know what your problem is?
You love to love someone but the minute they start taking the initiative like I did last night that scares the pants off you. Nothing off color intended. You didn’t wait at any stage door me, you know? I approached first. I touched first and you can’t handle that, can you.
Despite the fact that you’re one large pain in the arse, last night was the best thing that ever happened to me, girl-wise, and if you weren’t behaving like such a horse’s rectum you would know that we could be inside touching and fondling all day long until about 5 o’clock when I gotta go to rehearsal. Personally, Madam, I think you blew it.
“It never occurred to us that William Shakespeare wrote the ‘Wizard of Oz’. However, Elliot Garfield makes a splendid Wicked Witch of the North.” Tacky. Tacky. Well, if they’re gonna kill me, let ’em kill me with panache.
The ‘Times’ writes: Elliot Garfield researched Richard the Third, and discovered him… to be England’s first badly dressed interior decorator!
Channel 5 was honest. Direct and honest: ‘Richard the III stunk. And Elliot Garfield was the stinkee.’
You know what’s a nice feeling? To hear real people applauding. I took the names and addresses of everyone in the audience. I think we should have them over for dinner real soon.
