(GK: Garrison Keillor, SS: Sue Scott, TK: Tom Keith, TR: Tim Russell)
Our sound effects man Mr. Tom Keith hates to travel and when the show goes on tour, we come in to the office on Friday morning and find messages from Tom on the answering machine (BEEP. TK PHONE: Yeah, it's me. I'm not feeling so good. Not sure I can make it to Redding. Sorry. CLICK. BEEP. TK PHONE: Feels like a virus. I'd hate to give it to people. CLICK. BEEP. TK PHONE: How about I do the show over the phone? CLICK. BEEP. TK PHONE: I could put my part on tape.) So we have to send a search party over to Tom's house (KNOCKS ON DOOR. TK INSIDE: Nobody's home!) and we run a hose under the door and we pump stink gas inside (HISSING) and when he opens the door (DOOR OPEN, TK COUGHING) then we have a game warden shoot him with a hypodermic (GUN. POP OF NEEDLE. TK FAINTING. FALLS. TR FRED FARRELL: Mature male, about sixty inches at the shoulder, fur on head has molted.) and we carry him to the airport and put him on the plane. Why does he hate to travel? After forty years in the sound effects business, a man yearns for solitude. (SURF, GULLS) To sit on the beach at your Santa Barbara weekend house and watch the sun set and any kind of unexpected noise (CHOPPER GOING OVER) like a helicopter really ticks you off (HAMMER COCK. GUNSHOT, BIG EXPLOSION) so to get some peace and quiet you go to your Montana ranch (CATTLE LOWING) and you sit on the ranchhouse porch with your dog Rex (WOOFS. TK: Shut up. DOG WHINES) and your pet chicken Chuck.
(CHICKEN CLUCKS)
TK: Hey---
(CHICKEN CLUCKS)
TK: Zip up the beak, birdbrain.
(CHICKEN CLUCKS)
TK: You see that axe in the corner?
(CHICKEN FLURRY)
TK: You ever taste chicken croquettes? you know how good they are?
(CHICKEN CLUCK, QUIET)
TK: That's better.
(MEOW)
TK: Hey.
(MEOW)
TK: What do you want, furball?
(QUIET MEOW)
TK: Put a lid on it, okay?
(PURR)
But just when you get things settled down (ELEPHANT), there's some big commotion, a white elephant (ELEPHANT), or your neighbor takes up the bagpipes (BAGPIPE), or there's an air show and the Blue Angels come over in formation (JETS FLYOVER), so you go to your cave in New Mexico, you close the big steel door (CLANK. REVERB ON) and you walk down the passageway (FOOTSTEPS, REVERB) to the elevator (DING. DOOR OPENS. FOOTSTEPS. DOOR CLOSES. HUM OF ENGINE.) and you take it down five hundred feet to level 14 (ENGINE STOPS. DOOR OPENS. FOOTSTEPS. REVERB) and you walk into your bunker and you close the door (STEEL DOOR SHUTS) and you enjoy absolute quiet.
TK: LONG BREATH AND SIGH OF RELIEF
Five hundred feet of dirt and limestone between you and the world.
TK: This is what I call good living.
A world of pure silence.
TK: I love it.
(DRIP)
(DRIP)
(DRIP)
(DRIP)
(DRIP)
(DRIP)
(DRIP)
(DRIP)
(HAMMER COCK. GUNSHOT) (FASTER DRIPPING)
There's not much you can do about bad plumbing in a cave. Tom filled the place up with explosives and (DEEP UNDERGROUND EXPLOSIONS) demolished it. That's how sensitive he is about noise. Everybody at the show knows it.
SS: Hey, Tom?? ---- Oh. Sorry. --- I'll come back later.
(BAND PLAYOFF)
(c) 2000 by Garrison Keillor