William Rose

I don't think you have to worry too much about that. My wife is divorcing me, my mother-in-law is suing me for damages, my daughter is applying to the courts to have her name changed, my pension has been revoked. And the only reason that you 10 idiots will very LIKELY get off LIGHTLY, is because the judge will have me up there to throw the book at!

I'd like to think that sometime, maybe 10 or 20 years from now, there'd be something I could laugh at... Anything.

But the moment anybody gets to where they're going, we're going to pick them up. So what difference does it make who gets there first?

Ummm. Central to F7: No. We'll leave them where they are. See what happens. Watch all the exits, but render no assistance. Over.

You know what I believe I'd like? A chocolate fudge sundae with whipped cream and a cherry on top.

Nothing will happen here for five minutes.

Now, where have I always told ya that the Smiler hid the dough? Where? Right there!

I must say, if I had the grievous misfortune to be a citizen of this benighted country, I should be the most hesitant at offering any criticism whatever of any other.

Against it? I should be positively astounded to hear of anything that could be said FOR it. Why, the whole bloody place is the most unspeakable matriarchy in the whole history of civilization! Look at yourself, and the way your wife and her strumpet of a mother push you through the hoop! As far as I can see, American men have been totally emasculated. They're like slaves! They die like flies from coronary thrombosis, while their women sit under hairdryers, eating chocolates and arranging for every second Tuesday to be some sort of Mother's Day! And this positively infantile preoccupation with bosoms. In all my time in this wretched, godforsaken country, the one thing that has appalled me most of all is this preposterous preoccupation with bosoms. Don't you realize they have become the dominant theme in American culture: in literature, advertising and all fields of entertainment and everything. I'll wager you anything you like: if American women stopped wearing brassieres, your whole national economy would collapse overnight.

Look, wherever they are, surely the most sensible thing for the two of us to do is to press on. I mean for all we know, your brother-in-law may be out or away somewhere. And even if he were the first to be there, he still has to find the money, hasn't he? Now I earnestly recommend that we forget your good ladies and press on with all possible dispatch.

And I don't really think that personal rancor is going to help the situation. If I may say so.

You know I'm not entirely uncertain you haven't damaged this machine.

Madam, we must have waffles! We must all have waffles forthwith! We must all think, and we must all have waffles, and think each and every one of us to the very best of his ability...

And what, to flog a horse, that if not dead is at this point in mortal danger of expiring, does this little square represent?

Madam, or rather, mesdames, you must accept our apologies for not bein' able to perform, for, as you see, we are shorthanded. Gawain is still at work, and we could no more play with one part tacit than a horse could canter shy one leg. Perhaps I could offer, as a poor but ready substitute, a brief poetic recital. Though I do not pretend to any great oratorical skills, I would be happy to present, with your ladies' permission, verse from the unquiet mind of Mr. Edgar Allan Poe. Ladies, thy beauty is to me like those Nicean barks of yore, that gently, o'er a perfumed sea, the weary, wayworn wanderer bore, to his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, thy Naiad airs have brought me home to the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome.

Well... uh... properly speaking, madam, we are surprised. You are taken aback. Though I do acknowledge that the sense that you intend is gaining increasing currency through its use, yes.

Oh, indeed, indeed. The thirst for knowledge is a very commendable thing. Though I do believe that when you hear the explanation you shall laugh riotously, slappin' your knee and perhaps even wipin' away a giddy tear, relieved of your former concern. Lump here is an avid collector of Indian arrowheads, and having found one simply lying on your cellar floor - a particularly rare artifact of the Natchez tribe?

He enlisted the entire ensemble in an all-out effort to sift through the subsoil in search of others. And apparently, in doing so, we hit a mother lode of natural gas. I myself became acutely aware of the smell of "rotten eggs." And it was just at this inopportune moment that the General here violated the cardinal rule of this house and lit himself a cigarette.

Who only just remortgaged his home in order to raise the money for a surgical procedure that will correct the wandering eye of his common-law wife, Mountain Water, who suffers from astigmia, strabismus and a general curdling of the vitreous jelly. Mr. Pancake is an ardent foe of the Federal Reserve, and is, in fact, one of those eccentrics one often reads about hoardin' his entire life savings, in Mr. Pancake's case, in a Hefty bag that is his constant companion. The Steel Sak.

To penetrate the vault here this afternoon, while Mrs. Munson is at church, havin' blasted that little old rock to pieces durin' Mrs. Munson's choir practice. Garth, can you run us through the game plan for what remains of our tunnel?

And will you be able to wield the drill with your maimed extremity?

You, madam, are addressing a man, who is in fact quiet… and yet, not quiet, if I may offer to you a riddle.

What do you think, General? Present any problems? Good then. Gentlemen, why don't we crowd around and go over the plan? Gentlemen, this is the Bandit Queen. Gambling den. Cash cow. Sodom of the Mississippi Delta and the focus of our little exercise. Here is Orchard Street. Here is the residence of Marva Munson, the charming lady whom you all met moments ago. Gentlemen, I'm sure you're all aware that the Solons of the state of Mississippi, to wit, its legislature, have decreed that no gaming establishment shall be erected within its borders upon dry land. They may, however, legally float. While the gambling activity is restricted to these riverboats, no such restrictions apply to the functions ancillary to this cash-besotted business. The casino's offices, locker rooms, facilities to cook and clean, and, most importantly, its counting houses, the reinforced, secret, super-secure repositories of the lucre, may all be situated… wherever. Gawain, where is "wherever"?

Ha! Underground! Mmm! Underground. During the casino's hours of operation, the door to this counting room is fiercely guarded. The door itself is of redoubtable Pittsburgh steel. When the casino closes this entire underground complex is locked up, and the armed guard retreats to the casino's main entrance. There, then, far from the guard, reposes the money, behind a five-inch-thick steel portal, yes. But the walls… the walls are but humble masonry behind which is only the soft, loamy soil deposited over centuries by the Old Man, the meanderin' Mississippi, as it fanned its way back and forth across the great alluvial plain, leaving earth. This earth. The General here, whose curriculum vitae comprehends massive tunnelin' experience through the soil of his native French Indochina, shall be directin' our little old tunnelin' operation. Garth Pancake, though a master of none, is a jack of all those trades corollary to our aim. He will be doin' such fabricatin' and demolition work - as our little caper shall require.

Gawain is our proverbial "inside man." He has managed to secure himself a berth on the stodial staff of the Bandit Queen.

And this brings us to Lump. To look at Lump, you might wonder what specialized expertise could he possibly offer our merry little old band of miscreants. Well, gentlemen, in a project of such risks, it is imperative to enlist the services of a hooligan, a goon, an ape, a physical brute. Someone who will be our security, our battering ram, our blunt instrument. And, on our behalf, I wish him a warm Mississippi welcome.

Well, gentlemen, here you are. Men of different backgrounds and differing talents. Men with, in fact, but two things in common: One, you all saw fit to answer my advertisement in the Memphis Scimitar, and two, you're all going to be, in consequence, very, very, incredibly… rich. Let us revel in our adventure, gentlemen. Let us make beautiful music together, and, by all means, let us keep this to ourselves. What we say in this root cellar, let it stay in this root cellar.

Yes, I must confess. I often find myself more at home in these ancient volumes than I do in the hustle-bustle of the modern world. To me, paradoxically, the literature of the so-called "dead tongues" holds more currency than this morning's newspaper. In these books, in these volumes, there is the accumulated wisdom of mankind, which succors me when the day is hard and the night lonely and long.

Oh… Yes, yes. The Good Book, mm. I have found reward in its pages. But, to me, there are other good books as well. Heavy volumes of antiquity freighted with the insights of man's glorious age. And then, of course, I just love, love, love the works of Mr. Edgar Allan Poe.

No, madam, no, no. Not of this world, it's true. He... he lived in a dream. An ancient dream. Helen, thy beauty is to me like those Nicean barks of yore, that gently, o'er a perfumed sea, the weary, wayworn wanderer bore to his own native shore.

One doesn't know who Helen was... but I picture her as being very, very... extremely... pale. Mrs. Munson, I have been trying to figure out some way of expressin' my gratitude to you for takin' in this weary, wayworn wanderer. It's just a little old present. Why, it's hardly anything at all.

Oh, madam, I blush, I melt. No… I just happened to hear of this gospel concert tomorrow night, "The Mighty, Mighty Clouds of Joy", and I thought you and a friend from church perhaps would…?

Perhaps if you apologize to the man, gave him flowers… uh… perhaps a fruit basket with a card depicting a misty seascape and inscribed with a sentiment.

Surely a chocolate assortment has been known to melt the heart of even the hardest misanthrope.

I also hold a number of other advanced degrees, including the baccalaureate from a school in Paris, France, called the Sorbonne.

What the hell is it today? Less than 12% of the people in this city are colored people. I can't even have a dish of Oregon Boosenberry without runnin' into one of them.

Joanna, this may be the last opportunity I have to tell you to do anything, so I telling you, shut up!

Are you really capable of putting yourself in my position? Unless you've got some kids of your own, hidden away somewhere, that haven't shown up in the record, how could you possibly know how a father would feel in a situation like this? You don't know. I happen to believe, I happen to know, they wouldn't have a dog's chance, not in this country, not in the whole stinking world.

Now Mr. Prentice, clearly a most reasonable man, says he has no wish to offend me but wants to know if I'm some kind of a nut. And Mrs. Prentice says that like her husband I'm a burned-out old shell of a man who cannot even remember what it's like to love a woman the way her son loves my daughter. And strange as it seems, that's the first statement made to me all day with which I am prepared to take issue… cause I think you're wrong, you're as wrong as you can be. I admit that I hadn't considered it, hadn't even thought about it, but I know exactly how he feels about her and there is nothing, absolutely nothing that you son feels for my daughter that I didn't feel for Christina. Old- yes. Burned-out- certainly, but I can tell you the memories are still there- clear, intact, indestructible, and they'll be there if I live to be 110. Where John made his mistake I think was in attaching so much importance to what her mother and I might think… because in the final analysis it doesn't matter a damn what we think. The only thing that matters is what they feel, and how much they feel, for each other. And if it's half of what we felt- that's everything. As for you two and the problems you're going to have, they seem almost unimaginable, but you'll have no problem with me, and I think when Christina and I and your mother have some time to work on him you'll have no problem with your father, John. But you do know, I'm sure you know, what you're up against. There'll be 100 million people right here in this country who will be shocked and offended and appalled and the two of you will just have to ride that out, maybe every day for the rest of your lives. You could try to ignore those people, or you could feel sorry for them and for their prejudice and their bigotry and their blind hatred and stupid fears, but where necessary you'll just have to cling tight to each other and say "screw all those people"! Anybody could make a case, a hell of a good case, against your getting married. The arguments are so obvious that nobody has to make them. But you're two wonderful people who happened to fall in love and happened to have a pigmentation problem, and I think that now, no matter what kind of a case some bastard could make against your getting married, there would be only one thing worse, and that would be if - knowing what you two are and knowing what you two have and knowing what you two feel- you didn't get married. Well, Tillie, when the hell are we gonna get some dinner?