(GUY NOIR THEME)
TR: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets, but on the twelfth floor of the Acme Building, one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions --- Guy Noir, Private Eye ---
(PIANO)
GK: It was April, the time when the weather turns warm and suddenly Minnesotans don't have anything to talk about. All winter, things are on a fairly even keel and then the ice goes out on the river and suddenly we're free to have the problems we couldn't have all winter because we were busy finding food and shelter. Like my sister Georgina.
SS (DEEP, ON PHONE): I'm going in the hospital on Tuesday, Guy.
GK: What for?
SS (ON PHONE): I'm going to have a nervous breakdown.
GK: What?
SS (ON PHONE): I was on the verge of having it in December but then I got too busy. (BRIDGE)
GK: I was in Denise's House of Hair having my hair cut (SNIPPING)-----
SD: Keep your head up, Mr. Noir----
GK: Sorry, I'm feeling a little drowsy.
SD: Well, it's spring. It happens. (SNIPPING)
GK: And suddenly a medical student in blue scrubs came staggering in who was doing his residency in a big hospital nearby.
TR (DAZED, DESPERATE, KIRK-LIKE): I'm desperate, Mr. Noir. I'm working a hundred hours a week and I haven't had four consecutive hours of sleep since August and ----- I've forgotten my own name.
GK: It's right here in your wallet, sir. You're ------- Emily Halvorson?
TR (DAZED): I'm so sleep-deprived I'm stealing other people's wallets ------
GK: Well, get a grip-----
TR (DAZED): I'm so exhausted and I'm supposed to be on duty in fifteen minutes!
GK: What hospital are you at----- I'll call em------
TR (DAZED): It's a big one. With little----- little----- what are those things with the glass in them?
GK: Windows?
TR (DAZED): It has little windows.
GK: United Hospital? Regions? St. Joseph? Fairview? Mary Baker Eddy Memorial Hospital?
TR (DAZED): And what is this bottle I'm carrying around in my hand?
GK: It was a small blue bottle with a label half torn off. G-e-n it said. Genetics, or Generation, or ---- who could tell? I put it in my pocket. (BRIDGE) The same day, I was visited by a mysterious woman-----
(FOOTSTEPS)
SS: I need your help, Mr. Noir. I grew up just north of here, in Coon Rapids township. My dad was a dairy farmer. I moved away forty years ago.
GK: You look too young to have been gone forty years.
SS: California will do that to a person. Anyway, I want to find my childhood home. Can you help?
GK: I looked up the old plat maps and we drove out to where the farm was. (TRAFFIC AMBIENCE, TK FREEWAY TRAFFIC PASSING) -- As I figure it, your front door was right here.
SS: Right under the golden arches.
GK: Right. The parking lot was your front yard.
SS: That little dirt road through the cornfields ---- it became a six lane highway. ----- So the old schoolhouse was there where Kentucky Fried Chicken is.
GK: Yes.
SS: But it was on a hill.
GK: They shaved off the hill to fill in the marsh.
SS: Where the Cineplex 32 is.
GK: Right.
SS: I wonder if there's anything left of - of my childhood.
GK: I doubt it. When they build a mall, they like to work from a clean canvas. Just like Michelangelo did.
SS: I just wish I could see the old place again---- (GLISS)
GK: And the moment she said, "I wish" -- suddenly (TRAFFIC OUT, RURAL AMBIENCE, BIRDS, DISTANT COWS. A TRACTOR IN THE DISTANCE)---
SS: Oh my gosh. I can't believe it.
GK: Did you put some medication in my coffee?
SS: It's Coon Rapids as I remember it. There's Daddy out plowing. There's my horse, Bluebird. And here comes Mama. (MAMA) Alright now, Marcy, you come in and get started scrubbing the kitchen floor. Don't stand there dreaming. Time is a-passing. (AWAY, MUTTERING) (DAUGHTER) Mama---- I'm grown up now and I live in California. I'm a writer, Mama.
TR (MINN): Hey, Sunshine---- run in the house, wouldja, and get me out a pitcher of cold nectar, okay?
SS: Daddy----- I'm grown up and I went to California and I named my little boy for you, Daddy----- oh well, never mind.
GK: It appeared to be right around 1956. There was old two-tone Pontiac out front. An old white frame house with a screened porch.
(FOOTSTEPS ON WOOD, CREAK OF SCREEN DOOR OPEN, FOOTSTEPS, SCREENDOOR SLAP)
SS (MAMA, OFF): How many times do I have to tell you, don't let that screen door slap like that----- (DAUGHTER) Sorry, Mom! (MAMA) You kids don't listen to a thing I say! (DAUGHTER) Who's coming for Easter, Mama? (MAMA) Your Grandma and Grandpa. That's why we gotta get this place cleaned up! (DAUGHTER) Grandma and Grandpa. I'll get to see them again.
GK: There was the old white porcelain icebox with the drip pan underneath and the old gas range and oilcloth on the table and a linoleum floor and on the counter an Atwater-Kent radio. I turned it on and (TK STATIC, DIAL TURNING) I turned the dial and there was Richard Nixon (TR NIXON: One gift I did receive was our family dog, Checkers. And you know, the kids love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it. --..) (DIAL TURN) and there was Elvis (TR ELVIS: Well, I, uh, I am looking forward to my time in the U.S. Army and I'm just gonna do my best--.) (DIAL TURN) and there was Billy Graham (TR BILLY: And when we turn to the first chapter of Corinthians, chapter fourteen, verse eleven----) (DIAL TURN) and there was a young Senator from Massachusetts (TR JFK: Well, I, uh, I believe that lack of leadership is the problem and how to get this country moving again) (CLICK) and I clicked off the radio and it was perfectly still, no freeway, just a distant tractor (SFX) and the cows (SFX) and chickens (SFX) and a girl scrubbing the kitchen floor (SFX) ---- I walked out on the porch and there on the lawn sitting under a tree was the medical student, ----- (GUY'S FOOTSTEPS AS HE STRIDES TOWARD HIM) ---- hey, hey you------ what are you doing here?
TR (KIRK): I'm getting the first good night's sleep I've had in a year!
GK: You're not supposed to be here---- this is her childhood.
TR (KIRK): I don't care where I am. I'm finally getting some sleep.
GK: Listen, this is a fantasy. This doesn't involve you. This is 1956 or something. It makes no sense for you to be here. You weren't even born yet.
TR (KIRK): Don't talk to me, you're gonna wake me up.
GK: And then I heard the cry from the farmhouse----
SS (MAMA): WHO TOOK MY BILLFOLD??? IT'S GOT ALL MY PICTURES IN IT!
GK: I must be going nuts. What's your mother's name?
SS: Emily..
GK: Emily Halverson?
SS: Yes.
GK: You took the billfold of a woman back in 1956 before you were born.
TR: I thought the picture looked old.
GK: I don't understand this at all. We're in some kind of time warp.
TR (REAGAN): Did I ever tell you about when I was the host of "Death Valley Days" on television?
GK: Mr. President, I'm sorry---- I don't have time for this.
TR (REAGAN): Twenty-Mule Team Borax. That was the sponsor. They made a good hand soap.
GK: Hey, wait a minute---- the blue bottle. (STING) I took the blue bottle out of my pocket. The one with the torn label and g-e-n something written on it. It felt warm to the touch. And then (GLASS CRASH) -
GK: And I was back at the mall ------Marcia? Marcia? (TRAFFIC PASSING) I went into the McDonalds. She was behind the counter.
SS: Welcome to McDonalds ---- would you be interested in our McTuna Hotdish Sandwich on a Bun with a Side of McJello?
GK: Marcia-----
SS: We also have a Big 32-Ounce McNectar in Green, Red, or Purple.
GK: Marcia----- what's happened to you?
SS: It's our McMemory Meal, for only $2.39-----
GK: Sure, give me one of those.
SS: Is that for here or to go?
GK: It's to go. Then the manager came over-----
TR (ROD SERLING): No unnecessary conversations with the employees, sir.
GK: She was looking for her childhood home.
TR (ROD SERLING): Not any more. Not since she had her Happy Meal.
GK: Marcia----
TR (ROD SERLING): She's on Old MacDonald's Farm now. E-I-e-I-o.
GK: I wish I had that blue bottle back. (REVERB) I wish I had it back. I wish I had it back. I wish I had it back.
SD: Mr. Noir----- (SHAKING GK) Mr. Noir----- Wake up, Mr. Noir.
GK: What?
SD: I'm all done cutting your hair. How does it look?
GK: I looked at myself in the mirror. ---Fine.
SD: Is it okay?
GK: It's fine.
SD: Do you want me to trim your eyebrows?
GK: No, no----- (BRIDGE) What I wanted was to have that blue bottle back, but----what you going to do?
(MUSIC)
TR: A dark night in a city that keeps its secrets, and there on the twelfth floor of the Acme Building is a guy still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions, Guy Noir, Private Eye.
(MUSIC OUT)