(GK: Garrison Keillor; SS: Sue Scott; TR: Tim Russell; FN: Fred Newman; JS: Joel Smirnoff; RC: Ronald Copes; SM: Samuel Rhodes; JK: Joel Krosnick)
(THEME SONG & INTRO)
SS: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets. But high above the quiet streets on the 12th floor of the Acme Building, one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions--Guy Noir, Private Eye.
(THEME UP AND OUT)
GK: It was one of those gorgeous summer mornings when the sun shines down and the world is green and there is children's laughter in the air. And then I realized why and I stepped back from the window and put on a pair of pants. (PHONE RING, PICKUP) Yeah, Noir here.
TR: Mr. Noir, it's Vic over at Tanglewood. Listen. We got a problem. You ever hear of the Juilliard String Quartet?
GK: Of course.
TR: They got a big concert in four hours and they're missing the violist. If they don't play, we could have a riot on our hands.
GK: A riot at Tanglewood?
TR: It's happened before. People stamping their feet and throwing croissants and organic tomatoes at the stage. People glaring at the ushers. People putting recyclables into the waste bins. Deliberately. (STING)
GK: So I headed over to Tanglewood and drove up to the gate. (CAR APPROACH AND STOP)
FN: Yeah? Who're you?
GK: I'm a musician.
FN: What's the name?
GK: Ask Yo Mama.
FN: You mean Yoyo Ma?
GK: Right.
FN: Go right in. (CAR PULL AWAY) (BRIDGE)
GK: I walked up to the stage door and there were three guys in tuxes, playing pinochle with a stagehand. (DEALING OF CARDS) --- You the string quartet that's missing a violist?
JS: Maybe-----
GK: Maybe?
JK: Well, you asked if we were missing him.
GK: Is he gone?
JS: Yes.
GK: When did you notice he was gone?
RC: This morning. At rehearsal. About halfway through the second movement.
GK: Any ideas why he would've taken off?
JK: Maybe he didn't like the music.
GK: The Haydn?
JS: It's a quartet of Haydn's called "The Pigeons." It was just discovered in Vienna.
GK: Aha.
JK: In a jacket pocket. Haydn sent the jacket out to be cleaned and it just came back.
GK: Yeah, I've known cleaners like that. So what's the violist's name?
JS: We call him Dusty.
GK: Dusty---
JS: He likes early music ----
GK: And he just disappeared??
JK: I think something just snapped. Playing music is harder for a violist somehow. And it's tough playing in a quartet. It's no walk around the block. It's like ham & eggs. For the chicken, a day's work. For the pig, a lifelong commitment.
GK: Any of you know him really well?
JS: Well, he's a violist. You know? Personality isn't part of the deal.
RC: He and I were roommates on the road.
GK: What was he like to room with?
RC: He snored so loud it woke up people in the next room.
GK: What did you do?
RC: Every night I got dressed for bed, and I kissed him on the forehead, and I said, "You're very attractive, you know that----" and I went to bed and he sat up all night in the chair.
GK: Well, I've got three hours in which to locate him. Any idea where I might look?
JS: You could look around for our patron, Miss Yard. She really took a shine to Dusty.
RC: And she's rolling in dough. Her father was a furniture tycoon.
JK: Yard furniture? You've heard of it----
GK: And Miss Yard is your patron?
JS: Yes, Julie has been very very generous over the years. That's why we took her name.
GK: Of course. (BRIDGE) I scouted around backstage. The violist's dressing room was small and dim. There was a motto on the wall: "Be quiet and people will think you're listening to them." And then I saw it, on the end table. A jokebook. It was dog-eared and heavily underlined. And folded inside was an ad for a comedy club called The Berserkshires. It said, "Open Mike. Tonight. 7 pm." (BRIDGE) I got to the Berserkshires about 7:15. (CLUB AMBIENCE) The room was about half full. A blue collar crowd. Spa workers, Volvo mechanics. Candlemakers. Weavers. And onstage the emcee was just introducing the next act.
TR (EMCEE): What do you say we all put our hands together and give a great big warm Berserkshires welcome to MR. DUSTY RHODES! (CLAPPING)
GK: A slight stoop-shouldered man in a t-shirt that said, "Slow Down. I'm a Violist" approached the microphone.
SR: Thanks a lot, folks. It's great to be here with you.
When I was your age, all I thought about was sex. I just wanted to have sex with somebody. Maybe I should have been more specific. (RIMSHOT) But I didn't know anything about sex. When I played doctor, I just asked the girl some questions and sent her a bill.
I never discovered what true happiness was until I got married. And then it was too late. (RIMSHOT)
We met in a bar. That's why God invented alcohol. So that unattractive people can find love too. (RIMSHOT)
GK: His eyes shone, he was on a roll and he knew it.
SR: She said she didn't believe in premarital sex. I said, "It's only premarital sex if you're intending to get married." (RIMSHOT)
She said she didn't believe in casual sex either. I said, "So I'll put on a tie."
So I discovered a food that helps lower your interest in sex. It's called wedding cake.
GK: He took the microphone off the stand and held it in one hand, the cord in the other, like he was in Las Vegas.
SR: Let me tell you, I love being married. Very few things upset my wife and it makes me feel special to be one of them.
She wanted me to take up cross-country skiing. I said, "It's too big a country."
She wanted me to go on a diet. She figured that if I lost five pounds a month, in a few years she'd be rid of me completely.
GK: I looked at my watch. Seven-thirty. He had to be on stage at Tanglewood in half an hour. It wasn't going to be easy to stop him.
SR: Thank goodness my wife became a feminist. So she was angry at all men, not just me.
I said, "How can I make you happy? Can I buy you a BMW? Diamonds? A weekend house in the Berkshires?" She said, "I want a divorce." I said, "I wasn't planning to spend that much."
GK: I had to stop him. I waved at him and I said, "Tell the one about the two penguins. Standing on the ice floe." And he did---
SR: So there were these two penguins standing on an ice floe----
GK: And half a minute later we were outside (CROWD, OFF, BOOING) and I was wiping the croissants and garlic butter off him. -- Sorry, sir.
SR: It was going so well.
GK: You were killing em, pal. And all of a sudden they turned on you.
SR: I was just about to tell em my condom joke.
GK: Sorry, sir. The car is this way, sir----
SR: You know, I go through about three-dozen condoms a month. I feed them to my dog, one condom a day, and when he craps it comes out in a little plastic bag.
GK: That's a great joke, sir. I'm sorry you didn't get to tell it. (BRIDGE) We got in my car and we headed for Tanglewood. (CAR ACCEL)
SR: I love comedy. I don't know why I didn't go into it.
GK: You ever meet a comedian? Gloomiest people you ever met.
SR: Gloomier than horn players?
GK: Yes.
SR: Bassoonists?
GK: Well. No. But pretty darn gloomy. When you're in the business of making people laugh, you hardly ever break a smile yourself. It's the truth.
SR: I used to suffer from depression. I went into therapy. I told
my therapist everything. Every week. Month after month. I poured out my
heart. And after three years she turned to me and said, "No habla
espanol." So I went to another therapist and years passed and he
never said a word. Turned out he was Norwegian. I should have known, he
was driving a Fjord. (BRIDGE)
GK: I was kind of grateful when I finally got him to the backstage.
He'd gone through the high points of his routine and now he was exploring
the valleys.
SR: Why does a violinist have a handkerchief under his chin when he plays? Because there's no spit valve.
GK: Stage door is right through there, sir.
SS: Oh Dusty! Dusty! Where were you? I've been worried sick. Where were you?
SR: Hi Julie. I'm fine.
GK: She was tall, dressed in a wrap-around skirt and a T-shirt with a map of the Berkshires on it, and you could tell what a mountainous area that is. Her voice was low and thrilling and she looked like a very sharp turn that many men had skidded off and gone through the guard rail.
SS: I thought I had lost you. And it made me face up to something that I'd been running away from for too long.
SR: What's that?
SS: My heart. I'm in love with you, Dusty. Can't you see? That's why I gave all that money to the Quartet --- it was an excuse to be near you ---
SR: It was?
SS: Come, my beautiful violist. I want to take you away for a year and a day to the land where the Bong Tree grows and hand in hand we'll walk on the sand and dance by the light of the moon, the moon, we'll dance by the light of the moon.
SR: I don't know. It's hard to get excited about being a couple when you've had all these years as a foursome.
SS: You don't want to come?
SR: It isn't that I don't want to. It's that I can't. It's like the fish who wanted to go to sea and he swam into the concrete wall. He said, "Dam." And he turned around and swam back.
SS: Goodbye, Dusty.
SR: Bye.
(THEME UP)
TR: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets.
But high above the quiet streets on the 12th floor of the Acme Building,
one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions--
Guy Noir, Private Eye.
(THEME OUT)
© Garrison Keillor 2002