(GK: Garrison Keillor, SS: Sue Scott, TK: Tom Keith, TR: Tim Russell, RD: Rich Dworsky)
TR (VAMPIRE, SINGS):
Tonight I'm downhearted, for though we have parted,
You love me, I know that you do.
As I take my cape off 'n lie in my coffin,
O how my heart bleeds for you.
Are you lonesome tonight? Do you miss me tonight?
Are you sorry you made me a wreck?
Do you think of me on your balcony
When I made that scratch on your neck?
Do you think of my face when the hoot owl sings,TR (ARTS LADY): We have Marilyn on the line. Marilyn -
Do you listen at night for the beat of my wings?
Are your eyes all aglow? Are you really Type O?
Tell me, dear, are you lonesome tonight?
SS (ON PHONE): Thank you for taking my call. I love your show.
TR (ARTS LADY): Thank you, dear.
SS: I have a problem with closure.
TR (ARTS LADY): A closure issue, yes.
SS: For the past sixteen months, I've been a stable, committed, loving relationship with a vampire who I met one night when I was sleepwalking in the garden -
TR (ARTS LADY): I see ...
SS: I was attracted to him because I'm, like, definitely not a literal left-brain person and - like, when I met him, he was in the form of a wolf.
TR (ARTS LADY): Interesting.
SS: We'd go out on dates, and he'd show up as a bat or a raven, but bats can be just as beautiful as anything else. You know?
TR (ARTS LADY): Yes, of course.
SS: I feel we must learn to love bats so we can learn how to love ourselves.
TR (ARTS LADY): Good point.
SS: Of course we were very different. I'm a day person, he's a night person. I like waterbeds, he likes crypts. And so forth.
TR (ARTS LADY): Oh, I've been there.
SS: But we worked through that. But then I told him we needed to address his dependency issues and he went nuts.
TR (ARTS LADY): We're talking about blood, right?
SS: Exactly. I found out he was overdrawn at the blood bank. I offered to get him into a plasma program. He refused. He was a wonderful guy when he wasn't drinking blood, but then, look out. I told him I couldn't live like that. He said, "So die then."
TR (ARTS LADY): So you've broken up with him?
SS: That's my problem. I'm trying to. I don't know how.
TR (ARTS LADY): Well, if you want to get away, just cross a river. Vampires can't cross running water.
SS: I didn't know that.
TR (ARTS LADY): It's in my book, "Women Are From Venus, Men Are From Transylvania."
SS: That is so interesting.
TR (ARTS LADY): If you can find him during the day when he's resting, you might try cutting his head off with a shovel. And then drive a stake through his heart, but it has to be hawthorne or ash, and it has to be driven through his heart in one blow.
SS: So you don't think counseling will work?
TR (ARTS LADY): No, dear, you have to kill him and bury him head downwards with his hands and feet tied and pound stakes into the ground and fill up the coffin with seeds.
SS: What if we went to counseling, together?
TR (ARTS LADY): Read my book, dear. It tells you where to buy the right kind of shovel, everything.
SS: I'm going to hang up now - in case he's trying to call me.
TR (ARTS LADY): Okay. Let me know what happens. I care.
SS: Thank you.
TR (VAMPIRE):
Are your windows both open and the door locked, my dear?
Do you sit up in bed and sense that I'm near?
Is your heart filled with pain? shall I bite you again?
Tell me, dear, are you lonesome tonight? (HOWL)
(c) 1999 by Garrison Keillor