RHUBARB
Ten days before Christmas and you've just been fired from
Amalgamated Consolidated (FN: You're redundant, pal.
You're dead weight. A black hole. And nobody likes you.
You have one hour to clean out your desk. WHIP LASH)
and a man with a Rottweiler (SNARLS) takes you to your
little cubicle and (RUMMAGE JUNK) you put your stuff
into a garbage bag and then you see a certificate. And you
remember. Back when you were in college, a classmate
asked you what he should call the new company he was
starting up and you told him and he couldn't afford to pay
you so he gave you a few shares, He was going to call it
Digital Directory Terminal, DDT. You said, No, call it
Facebook. And by gosh he did. You take your boxful of
stuff and get on the bus (SFX, AIRBRAKES, ACCEL) to
head home and on your cellphone (BEEPS) you compute
what your share is worth and----- (TR: Gosh. Two hundred
million dollars.) And you think about donating all of it to a
good cause like the Clinton Foundation (TR CLINTON:
We'll use it to launch a new initiative against pestilence
and disease) but the next day a realtor is walking you
through a Park Avenue penthouse (FOOTSTEPS)
SS: There is the terrace with the heated lap pool and here is
the kitchen....(TR: Wow) with the cooking island, the
walk-in pantry, the French range (TR: Wow. The pantry is
bigger than my current apartment.) ....and here is the media
room with the movie screen (MOTOR).....(FOOTSTEPS
CONTINUE)
GK: And you feel shame (TR: What happened to my
ideals? My commitment to economic justice?)
SS: And here is the master bedroom (RK VIOLIN) which
comes with a strolling violinist.
TR: Wow.
GK: So you buy it and you hire an interior designer (TR
ITALIAN) who does a lot with gray slate and abstract
expressionist paintings and big jars with dried weeds in
them and you move in, you and your cat (MEOW), and you
give a housewarming party and invite your old pals who do
not bother to hide their resentment (FN, SS, TR BITTER
MURMURS) and envy, but what the hey, it's beautiful
(TR: I love it, the openness of it, the view from the 40th
floor (SLIDING DOOR, TRAFFIC FAR BELOW) ----
though it also makes you nervous, being up so high (TR:
Long way down) and that first night you take a sleeping pill
your doctor prescribed (TR: Hmmm. Side effects may
include dementia, somnambulism, stroke, paralysis, sudden
death ---- oh, well, what the heck) and that night you sleep
a deep sleep (BREATHING) and you have a series of
horrific dreams, you're back in Minnesota in a blizzard
(SFX) and your car is stuck (TIRES SPINNING) and you
walk toward town and a demented rural person comes after
you (SFX) and he has a chainsaw (CHAINSAW) and you
run down the railroad tracks and he's chasing you
(RUNNING, PANTING, CHAINSAW WAVING)...
GK: ...and now you're on a trestle high over a fast river,
and you wake up and actually you're walking on a guy wire
(TRAFFIC FAR BELOW) and the strolling violinist is
right behind you (RK VIOLIN) and you're forty stories
above ground and halfway between your apartment and the
Chrysler Building and (CREAKING OF WIRE) the wire is
swaying slightly and you don't have your glasses on and
everything is rather blurry and wouldn't this be a good time
for a piece of rhubarb pie......
NEW RHUBARB JINGLE, FOR DIGIS
Rhubarb pie or Rhubarb wine
It does wonders for your mind.
Turns a sad sack into a poet,
The secret of the good life as we know it.