(MUSIC)
GK: My wife Doreen and I and our kids live in Elysium, Wisconsin, a little town you probably never heard of, south of Madison, and we live just outside Elysium ---- we're in a mobile home park there, which is actually very nice ---- we fixed up our place so you almost can't tell it's a mobile home ----- I'm the produce manager at the grocery store and Doreen is a waitress at the truck stop and did I mention the kids? We have a boy and a girl, Dave and Denise, in high school --- anyway this was on Wednesda y, I'd just come in from helping out my neighbor, Mrs. Rasmussen, who'd had a skunk under her house so I was trimming the weeds around it (SFX WEED TRIMMER) and I fixed the skirt (HAMMER) so the critter couldn't get in ---- (SS: Thank you so much. That wa s real nice of you.) ---- and when I came home, the news was already on and Doreen was sitting there watching and I opened up a can of beer (POP CAN TOP). ----What's that all about? (AUDIO)
MJ: There was a lottery winner this week, Charlie.
GK: Huh. Man, people are crazy, aren't they? It's like a frenzy, it's like animals, hoping against hope, 1 in 80 million odds, it's nothing but a government scheme to fleece the poor----
MJ: How many tickets did you buy?
GK: Sixteen. How many did you buy?
MJ: Two.
GK: So who was the winner anyway?
MJ: They didn't announce her name.
GK: Her?
MJ: Yes.
GK: How do you know it's a her?
MJ: Guess.
GK: Are you kidding? Is this a joke?
MJ: No.
GK: Where?
MJ: Where what?
GK: I don't even know what I'm asking. Did you look at your ticket?
MJ: I don't need to.
GK: What are you saying, Doreen?
MJ: I have the winning ticket, Charlie.
GK: How much did you win?
MJ: A hundred and ninety-five million dollars. A hundred and seven million after taxes.
GK: Don't joke with me about this, Doreen.
MJ: I'm telling you the truth.
GK: I'm warning you, don't kid about this.
MJ: I remember the numbers: it's Dave's birthday and then Denise's and then mine and the number eight.
GK: Doreen, don't do this to me.
MJ: I have the ticket.
GK: Where?
MJ: It's in my jacket pocket. (FOOTSTEPS AND STOP. RUMMAGE. SLIP OF PAPER)
GK: O my God in heaven. This is the number that's on the TV screen. The number here on your ticket. It's the same number. Both of them. This one and that one. What are we going to do? Oh Doreen. What are you looking at me like that for?
MJ: I dreamt that I dwelled in marble halls
With servants on either hand.
And paintings and tapestries on the walls
And an atrium light and grand.
I had one-hundred seven million bucks
I'd won in the Powerball game.
And I dreamed of you in an elegant tux
That you loved me still the same, that you loved me
You loved me still the same, that you loved me
You loved me still the same.
GK: Oh God help us. What are we going to do? We've got to get out of town. Tonight. When people find out ---- Ohhhhh ----- nobody's ever going to be friends with us, Doreen ----- we'll have plenty of enemies and plenty of people trying to leech off us and no friends. Nothing is ever going to be normal again. Honey, what are we going to do? Why do you stand there with that faraway look on your face?
MJ: I dreamed that I dwelled in marble halls
And in satin and silks was attired,
And walked among fountains and waterfalls
And had all that my heart desired.
There was music and linen and crystal and wine
And a clear white candle flame,
And you, darling, you, dearest lover of mine,
And you loved me still the same, and you loved me
You loved me still the same, yes, you loved me
You loved me still the same.
GK: A hundred million dollars. They're going to have a whole division of the IRS assigned to us. They're going to audit last year's return, they're going to look at all those---- oh my gosh. The IRS. You're talking guys with little glittery eyes and bad s kin and dandruffy hair who eat Big Macs for breakfast and then go after people like us and run us to ground and ---- honey, we've got to get out of here.
MJ: Everything's going to be all right, Charlie. As long as you love me, we're fine.
GK: I don't think so.
MJ: Do you love me?
GK: Yes.
MJ: Do you really love me?
GK: Yes, but they're not going to love us one bit---
MJ: Who?
GK: All of them. Mrs. Rasmussen, your family, Bill and Gladys, the kids' teachers, my boss, Pastor Hemmings, all of them ----- the minute they hear about this, they're going to rip us to shreds, Doreen. They'll come over and tell us how happy they are for us and then they'll go slander us up one side and down the other and talk about how stuck-up and snippy we are and everything. Let's move to Paris.
MJ: Paris!!???
GK: Why not? A new start.
MJ: When?
GK: Now.
MJ: Why Paris?
GK: Why not?
MJ: How can we do that, Charlie?
GK: We'll just do it.
MJ: Just ---- go?
GK: Yes.
MJ: Just like that?
GK: Why not?
MJ: We don't even speak French.
GK: We can hire somebody to speak it for us.
MJ: Paris! How would we ever fit in in Paris?
GK: Honey, with a hundred million dollars, Paris'd find a way to fit us in. It's here we don't fit in.
MJ: We wouldn't know anybody in Paris.
GK: Pretty soon we won't know anybody here in Elysium, Wisconsin.
SS (TEEN): What are you arguing about?
TR (TEEN): Yeah, what's wrong, Dad?
GK: We're not arguing about anything.
SS (TEEN): I heard you talk about a hundred million dollars ---- what are you talking about?
GK: It's nothing. We're talking about ---- the federal budget ---- never mind ---- where are you going?
SS (TEEN): We're going over to Sugar's.
GK: Isn't it kind of late?
TR (TEEN): Oh Dad. It's ten-thirty.
GK: Isn't that kind of late?
TR (TEEN): Dad, you really need to catch up, you know that? It's 1998. Jeez.
SS (TEEN): Get a grip.
TR (TEEN): Goodbye. (DOOR SLAM)
GK: What do you say, Doreen? Paris. A new life.
MJ: Charlie, what would people say if we just ran away?
GK: We wouldn't be here to find out.
MJ: This is our home.
GK: Home is anyplace we are.
MJ: But Paris----
GK: In Paris, we could drive any car we wanted, live in whatever house we wanted to live in, eat ice cream for breakfast if we wanted to, dress as we want to, wear our hair short or long or shave it off or color it orange, and nobody would mind ---- we wo uldn't have a thousand people peering at us through their curtains and thinking, Who do they think they are? What do you say?
MJ: I dreamt that I lived on the Champs Elysee
With a house on the Cap D'Azur
With a white marble house looking out on the bay
And the sand stretching white and pure.
MJ (OVER MUSIC): I wanted him to take us away --- put us in the car --- drive to the airport ---- buy the tickets to Paris ---- I wanted him to lead, and that way, when my mother came to visit us in our beautiful marble palace on the Champs Elysee and she looked at all the beautiful things and she said, "Very nice," and then she looked at me with that look I know so well that says, "Children are going hungry in China and you paid how much money for that dress?" --- I could tell her, "Mother, I did it for Charlie. He wanted to go to Paris. I came with him. I love him. It isn't for me, Mother. It's for him."
(SHE SINGS) And I love him still the same, and I love him I love him still the same.
GK: That night, I had a dream (DREAM MUSIC) in which Doreen ran away with the minister -----
MJ: Earl and I have been drawn to each other for years, Charlie---
TR (MINNESOTA): Yeah, and there's just no point in our trying to deny it any longer, it's the kind of passion that a guy hopes for all his life, so we wanna wish ya the best, Charlie, and ---- here ---- here's the key to my boat. It's the least I can do.
GK: And they left and then my children turned on me -----
SS (TEEN): You never loved us. Ever.
TR (TEEN): All you care about is work.
GK: That's not true.
SS (TEEN): You don't know us at all. You don't know us as people.
TR (TEEN): You just know us as objects.
GK: I love you both.
TR (TEEN): You're just saying that.
SS (TEEN): We're running away and don't try to stop us.
TR (TEEN): We're going to get tattoos on our foreheads....
GK: No, please no---- no-----
SS (TEEN): I'm going to have a wooden disc implanted in my lower lip.
GK: No, honey. Please. Don't.
SS (TEEN): A wooden disc the size of a pie plate. I'm going to have it implanted in my lower lip ---- that is so cool ---- that is such a statement----
GK: Please. Don't do this. Please.
TR (TEEN): What do you care? You don't care.
GK: Please, don't.
SS (TEEN): Why not?
GK: Please, honey.
SS (TEEN): It's my lip. It's my life.
GK: Don't do it. Please. (DOOR SLAM) And in my grief I went into a bar and I got plastered ----
TK (DRUNK): Hey----- I'd like another one of these----- rum and Cokes.
GK: And space aliens were there---- (SFX SCUBA BREATHING)
SS (METALLIC VOICE): You are under our control.
GK: And there were vicious psychopaths going through the neighborhood (TR BANGING ON DOOR AND SHOUTING) and then it turned out that I had prostate cancer ----
TK (DOCTOR): Your prostate is approximately the size of a breadbox, so I'm going to insert this stainless steel rod and we're going to take a tissue sample. Okay? This is going to sting a little.
GK: And I had no health insurance, I'd been fired at the grocery store.
SS: You're nothing but a nincompoop, Mr. Tindall, and I'm tired of your nincompoopery. You understand? You wouldn't know a cauliflower from a kumquat. Turn in your white apron. You're out on your hinder, mister. And good riddance to bad rubbish.
GK: And I woke up from this horrible dream (MUSIC TRANSITION), Doreen was standing by the bed.
MJ: Charlie ---- Charlie ---- wake up ----
GK: What---- what is it?
MJ: We have visitors.
GK: I had a terrible dream that Dave had a car crash and I had prostate cancer and I'd been fired from work-----
MJ: There are some reporters outside.
GK: Oh no.
MJ: I think Mrs. Rasmussen told them.
GK: How did she know?
MJ: She was behind me in line when I bought the lottery tickets.
GK: So?
MJ: Usually I buy one ticket. That time, I bought two. The second one was the winner.
GK: Oh.
MJ: So she called the TV station.
GK: Oh no.
MJ: It's all right.
GK: What are we going to do?
MJ: We'll go out and tell them the truth.
GK: Which is what?
MJ: That we won the money and we're going to use it for good. We're not going to hog it for ourselves ---- we're going to spend it on the community.
GK: Couldn't we hog a little bit of it?
MJ: For what?
GK: I don't know. Stuff. A new car.
MJ: What do we need a new car for?
GK: Why not?
MJ: Our car runs fine.
GK: Why not get one for fun?
MJ: Why?
GK: Because we have a hundred million dollars, that's why.
MJ: We don't need it.
GK: Boy, I knew that marrying a Lutheran was not going to be easy.
MJ: Well? we don't need a new car.
GK: What's wrong with getting a car?
MJ: It's the first step, that's why.
GK: First step to what?
MJ: The first step to becoming corrupt and the next thing you know we'd jet off to the Caribbean every winter on our Lear jet and we'd have facelifts and get our teeth capped and we'd hang out with beautiful and incredibly stupid people and we'd develope a cocaine habit and take barbiturates and one night we'd go to bed stoned and choke to death in our sleep on a sandwich.
(PAUSE)
GK: Why would we be eating a sandwich in our sleep----
MJ: Never mind.
GK: I don't understand.
(STRING INSTRUMENTAL)
MJ (OVER MUSIC): Why did he keep asking me for permission? I wanted him to go buy a car ---- a silver Rolls Royce, anything ---- and bring it home and take me away in it ---- I wanted him to sweep me away on a spending binge, so that when Mother gave me t hat look, that People-are-scrounging-in-dumpsters-for-food-and-you-spent-how- much-on-that-TV? look ---- I could say, "Mother, it's only because I love him. I did it for love, Mother."
GK: There were six TV cameras and about fourteen other people standing in our driveway, and I was about to go out and talk to them ----- and then ----
MJ: What is it?
GK: How would Mrs. Rasmussen know that you won the lottery just because you were standing ahead of her in line at the Stop 'N Shop?
MJ: Charlie----
GK: What?
MJ: I have a confession.
GK: You told Mrs. Rasmussen?
MJ: I bought a marble fountain. I bought it from a marble catalogue. UPS delivered it this morning. It's in back. I hooked it up to a garden hose. (MUSIC)
GK: And I went and looked out the back window and----- (MUSIC OF SPLENDOR) ----- it was a marble fountain that covered half the backyard, it was fourteen feet high, with little marble cherubs peeing water into the air, and golden scrollwork and bronze flo wers and all shades of marble, green and brown and gold ----
MJ: I shouldn't have done it. I don't know what got into me.
GK: It's beautiful.
MJ: I'm sending it back. Tomorrow.
GK: It's beautiful.
MJ: It's too big. It cost way too much.
GK: I like it.
MJ: It cost fifty-eight thousand dollars, Charlie. Fifty-eight thousand dollars for a fountain. That's twice what we paid for the house.
GK: I love the way the sun catches the water as it shoots up.
MJ: I'm ashamed of myself for paying that kind of money for a fountain, for crying out loud.
GK: It's the most beautiful fountain I've ever seen.
MJ: Of all the things a person could spend money on-----
GK: It reminds me of Paris.
(MUSIC BRIDGE)
GK: So I went out and told the press that we were going to use the money to do good for our community.
MJ: He went out and told them we were going to use the money to do good and I kept wishing he'd say that we were going to do good and then go to Paris but he didn't say that.
GK: I told them we were going to use the money to do good and as I said it, I thought to myself, Why are you saying this? But it was Doreen's money, not mine, and she wanted to do good, so that's what we should do.
MJ: My mother called me that afternoon. She'd seen Charlie on TV.
SS (ON PHONE): Congratulations. I am so excited. I heard all about it on TV. I'm so happy for you. It's so wonderful. Are the kids excited? I suppose they must be. Oh, honey, this must be so hard on you, isn't it. I can tell by the sound of your voice. Th is must be a tremendous strain. Do you want me to come for a few days?
MJ: No.
SS (ON PHONE): Having all that money and reporters in your driveway and no privacy --- people watching your every move and you know that no matter what you say or do, people are going to think the worst of you just because you happened to have a hundred a nd seven million dollars fall into your laps ---- that's just how people are --- you know it and I know it ----- are you sure you don't want me to come?
MJ: We're fine, Mother.
SS (ON PHONE): You sound as if you're under just a horrible amount of stress. I can tell. You know, I read an article the other day about big lottery winners, there was some kind of study of them, and a year after they won the big prize, half of them had gotten divorces and the other half were in therapy. Isn't that interesting? Half of them were divorced. I read that in a magazine.
MJ: We're fine, Mother. We love each other and we're going to use the money to do good in our community.
SS (ON PHONE): Well, that's what I heard Charlie say on TV. That's wonderful. I knew you wouldn't go spending it on mink coats or anything. That's wonderful. I'm proud of both of you. How about I come over this evening? You sound tired. (MUSIC)
GK: Doreen decided to keep the fountain, but only for a few days, and then we'd donate it to the high school.
MJ: I wanted him to say, No, we'll keep it right here, we can buy another fountain for the high school, but this is our fountain ---- but he didn't say that.
(PHONE RING)
GK: The phone rang off the hook. People calling up to say how proud they were of us that we were going ahead with our lives and weren't letting this change us one bit and we were giving the whole thing to the community and what an inspiration we were. (VO ICE AT OTHER END) Well, thank you. Thanks. (VOICE AT OTHER END) Well, it was Doreen's idea to do that, and you know, it was her lottery ticket, so---- (VOICE AT OTHER END) Well, I don't know. A community center maybe. An arts center. Whatever people want. A park. You know. We just want to be of use. (VOICE) Well, that's right. Like they say, in the end you won't be judged by how much you have but how much you give. (VOICE) Okay. Well, thanks for the call. Good talking to you. (VOICE) Okay. You too. (MUSIC )
MJ: That night, I dreamed that Charlie and the kids and I were in first-class on an Air France flight to Paris (TK ON P.A. PILOT IN FRENCH) and the seats were like easy chairs and the steward brought us hot towels.....
TR (FRENCH): Hot towel, madame, monsieur----- may I offer you a foot massage? A glass of wine? Tonight we are pouring a 1992 (LONG FRENCH NAME) Chardonnay, very fruity and yet with a sense of irony, and a 1989 (LONG FRENCH NAME) Cabernet, very masculine b ut sensitive ---- here is the dinner menu ----- there is one special not on the menu ---- and that is a (LONG FRENCH NAME) ---- that is a broiled breast of brook trout on a bed of Basmati rice and braised broccoli. And if you'd like, after dinner and dess ert, a liqueur perhaps, I will be happy to come around to read you a story, Anna Karenina perhaps or Les Miserable. Abridged, of course. (MUSIC)
GK: I called up the grocery store in the morning and told them I needed to take a couple days off. They said, Well, we sure understand you must have a lot on your plate right now. Actually, I was just tired of people looking at me. So were the kids.
SS (TEEN): Do we have to go to school?
TR (TEEN): I want to stay home, Dad.
GK: I think you should go.
SS (TEEN): You're not going to work. How come we have to go to school?
TR (TEEN): Yeah, it's not fair.
GK: Because you learn something at school. I don't learn anything at work.
TR (TEEN): I'm tired of people asking me what it's like.
SS (TEEN): All of a sudden all these kids want to be, like, friends or something.
TR (TEEN): I feel like getting a tattoo on my forehead....
GK: No, please no---- no-----
TR (TEEN): --- that says, Go away, don't ask me.
(MUSIC)
MJ: We made the kids go to school, and we sat at the breakfast table and looked at each other and Charlie said to me....
GK: Are you sure you don't want to go to Paris?
MJ: We told the press that we were going to use the money for good, and go on working and nothing would be different, Charlie.
GK: So? People lie to the press all the time. They expect it. They're disappointed if you don't.
MJ: I wanted him to take my hand and lead me to the car and drive to school and get the kids and go to the airport, but I knew that he wouldn't. That afternoon, I ordered the marble for the hallway.
(MUSIC)
GK: That's a heck of a lot of marble, honey. For a mobile home.
(ECHOING FOOTSTEPS ON MARBLE. REVERB ON VOICES)
GK: I don't think this home is very mobile anymore.
MJ: I shouldn't have done it. I'll have them rip it out.
GK: It's beautiful.
MJ: I'll call them up right away.
GK: Look how the colors change with the light.
MJ: I don't know what got into me. I'm sorry.
GK: It's hard to believe that a mobile home could be so beautiful.
MJ: I keep doing one dumb thing after another.
GK: I like it.
(FOOTSTEPS STOP)
MJ: I always wanted marble halls.
GK: It's fine. It looks wonderful.
MJ: Are you sure?
GK: It's fine.
MJ: Are you happy?
GK: Uh huh.
MJ: Do you still love me?
GK: Sure.
MJ: Do you?
(SINGS) Do you love me still the same, do you love me
Do you love me still the same, do you love me
You love me still the same.
(MUSIC)
GK: (PHONE RING) The phone kept ringing and I kept hoping I'd pick it up and somebody at the other end would tell me to come to Paris and so we'd have to go, but it was only people telling us how wonderful we are. (VOICE AT OTHER END) Thanks. Appreciate t hat. (HANG UP) And I unplugged the phone, and went in the bedroom and went to sleep and in my sleep I was burning stuff in an incinerator and a voice came to me out of the flames.
TR (REVERB): Hi there.
GK: God?
TR: That's right.
GK: Somehow I knew it was you.
TR: Good guess.
GK: Everything all right?
TR: How do you mean?
GK: My wife and my kids ---- they're okay?
TR: Sure.
GK: You didn't kill em, like you did Job's?
TR: Nope. Your wife is talking to her mother on the phone, and your son is taking a geography test, and your daughter is doing her math homework and eating a strawberry. They're all fine. Your marble hallway has some problems, but your family's just fine.
GK: What's wrong with the hallway?
TR: Just some moisture behind the marble. Condensation. You need to put in a vapor barrier --- no big problem.
GK: I just keep expecting that you're going to whack us one.
TR: Because you won the Powerball lottery? No. I don't operate like that.
GK: Well, that's good to know. Am I going to be all right? I keep dreaming about all these terrible things happening to me.
TR: Sorry, I don't reveal the future anymore. I used to ---- to the prophets ---- but when they told people, they got stoned to death, and nobody listened to them anyway, so I quit.
GK: Did you rig the lottery so we'd win?
TR: Nope. I don't do that. I'm a big fan of chance. You ever read about chaos theory? No? Interesting.
GK: God, you know we're not as good as people think.
TR: I'm aware of that.
GK: Is there any way we can get to Paris?
TR: I've got to run. Good talking to you. You be careful. And don't forget about the vapor barrier. (MUSIC)
MJ: We put the money in an account and there were a lot of community meetings to talk about what to do with it and after a few months we got tired of going.
GK: We bought land for a park, and then there was a big squabble about that, and I don't know what happened with it.
MJ: We gave twenty million dollars to our church, and that was the worst ---- people fought over what to do with it, people weren't speaking to each other ----
GK: We kept pretty much to ourselves, Doreen and I. And one night, looking at the beautiful fountain, she said....
MJ: I want to use some of the money to make a movie. A movie about the Midwest. (MUSIC BUILD SLOWLY UNDER) A movie about good hard- working people, God-fearing people, people who try to raise their kids right and be good neighbors and work for their commu nities. A movie that doesn't exploit sex or violence. A movie about family, about faith, about the seasons, about ----- I know ----- we'll call it "Seasons of Life".
GK: That's good. "Seasons of Life".
MJ: You like that?
GK: I do.
MJ: "Seasons of Life". (MUSIC TRANSITION)
GK: Doreen wrote the script of "Seasons of Life" that summer and I read it. It was good. It was about a little town, and there was a blizzard in it, and everybody in the town pulled together and helped each other, and nobody was hurt. The movie was budget ed at thirty million dollars, but with the blizzard and everything, it came in at fifty-nine million dollars, and when we got done with the marketing and advertising, the cost was up to eighty million, and we had problems with the distributor and had to d istribute it ourselves, and eventually we were up to ninety-five million, and the movie came out in June, and it wasn't a June kind of picture. The reviews were real torpedoes.
SS: Dreary...dismal...inane....colorless...pedestrian....repetitive.. ..pointless. What else can I say? Did I mention repetitive?
TR: Two thumbs down. Way down.
GK: It wasn't just the New York Times that panned it, it was midwestern papers too----- the Milwaukee Journal----
SS: It's hard to believe anyone could have spent this much money to make a movie this awful.
GK: The Madison (WI) Capitol Times----
TR: If you go, don't expect to find meaning or humor or drama or passion or characterization or dialogue or cinematography. The emotional high-point is a long closeup of cheese fondue.
GK: And our hometown paper, the Elysium Express-----
SS: One searches for words to describe "Seasons of Life" and the best word, perhaps, is puky.
(MUSIC)
GK: And so we lost everything and there was nothing left for the community and nobody would speak to us but we didn't care because they hadn't spoken to us before that so what was the difference. The kids moved away, but that's what kids tend to do anyway .
TR (TEEN): Bye, Dad. Mom.
MJ: Bye, honey. Don't forget to write.
SS (TEEN): Are you guys going to be okay here?
GK: We're just fine. (MUSIC BRIDGE)
(OUTDOOR NIGHT AMBIENCE)
GK: You care for another beer?
MJ: No, thanks.
GK: Got two more.
MJ: No, thanks.
GK: Beer nuts?
MJ: No.
GK: Are you mad at me?
MJ: No, not particularly.
GK: It's okay if you want to be.
MJ: No. I was, but I got over it.
GK: Oh?
MJ: I'm fine.
GK: Good.
MJ: I like to look at it at night, don't you?
GK: The fountain? Yes.
MJ: You don't think we should put in lighting, do you?
GK: No, I like to look at it in the dark.
MJ: I look at it and imagine we're in Paris.
GK: So do I.
MJ: I dreamed that I lived in an old mobile home
With petunias along the driveway.
And a grocery store calendar over the phone
And a plastic flower bouquet.
All the money we'd won we had thrown to the winds
But I felt no regret or shame.
For you still were my husband, my lover, my prince,
And you loved me still the same, and you loved me
You loved me still the same, and you loved me
You loved me still the same.
(c) 1998 by Garrison Keillor