(THEME)
TR: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets, but one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions -----Guy Noir, Private Eye.
(PIANO)
GK: It was May and I was in Indiana on yet one more case of a wayward daughter and an inappropriate romance. A girl named Kendra Hendricks. Her dad hired me, an investment banker in New York.
FN: She dropped out of Harvard, Mr. Noir, and she ran off with an Amish kid name Jonah and she's out there now, about to marry him. We're absolutely heartbroken. She always loved horses but this is carrying things too far.
GK: How does a Harvard student ever meet an Amish kid?
FN: Anthropology. She went out there to write her senior term paper and found she loved it. She's from New York so she already had a lot of black dresses so----- I donno.
GK: I'll go have a look.
FN: Please, Mr. Noir. We're desperate. (STING)
GK: I had no connections in the Amish world but I did have a friend at Goshen College, a Mennonite school, which isn't Amish at all but you can see it from there. So I flew out and took him out for a beer. Moab is his name. Moab Gottweiler. We call him Mo.
DR: Yeah, I got cousins who are Amish. My dad was one, you know, and then he saw a golf tournament on TV and he could not get over it.
GK: Golf, huh?
DR: He went crazy about golf. He was hitting a ball around the pasture and it wasn't motorized so they let him do it and then he bought a pair of yellow plaid golf pants and that was it, bang, they kicked him out.
GK: How old was he?
DR: Twenty-three. Still held to Amish doctrine but he loved plaids, paisley, hot pink, flower patterns, put some purple in his hair. He became a person of colors. Didn't fit in with the Amish, had to go over to the Pentecostals.
GK: So how can I get in touch with this young woman?
DR: I'll ask around. (BRIDGE)
GK: I walked around Goshen College and I noticed a lot of language courses. Goshen has one of the best study abroad programs in the country and there were classes in Cambodian (TR), Arabic (TR ARABIC), Italian (TR), Swedish (TR), Russian (TR), German (TR), Low German (TR), Chinese (TR), and Pekinese (BARKS).
SS: Excuse me?
GK: Yes?
SS: Would you have a minute to take a simple opinion survey?
GK: I guess so.
SS: We are designing an ad campaign for the Mennonite churches to try to change their public image.
GK: Do they have a public image?
SS: Well, it's confusing. Some people think they're a men's organization, some people get it mixed up with menopause.
So we're trying to create a more positive image. Listen to this and tell me if this gives you a positive feeling-----
CHORUS SING (TO DOX):
If you are in a long hard search
To find a happy healthy church,
A church that's absolutely right.
Well, here we are, we're Mennonite.
GK: I don't know. I mean, it's nice, but.....
SS: Or does this give you a positive image?
CHORUS (O HAPPY DAY):
With faces bright
Our hearts are light
We're proud to say, we're Mennonite.
A people who live peacefully
Who sing in four-part harmony.
Mennonite.
We won't bite.
Oh won't you visit our website.
GK: I don't know, I'm maybe not the person to ask.
SS: Or does this give you a more positive image?
CHORUS (SHAKE IT OFF):
Lutherans are rather loose, loose, loose, loose, loose
Brethren have bad breath, breath, breath, breath, breath
I am staying home tonight, night, night, night, night
Mennonite! Mennonite!
Presbyterians are gonna press, press, press, press, press
Methodists they are a mess, mess, mess, mess, mess
Episcopalians are pale, pale, pale, pale, pale
Mennonite! Mennonite!
(BRIDGE)
GK: It's a bustling town, Goshen. Lot of road repair, which is a good sign. And a good-looking downtown. A beautiful old movie theater, coffee shops and restaurants, art galleries. When you think of Indiana, you think of basketball, limestone, soybeans, and the Vice-President famous for misspelling the word "potato". You don't think of art. But there it was. Music, poetry, painting---- and then this wagon pulls up. (HORSE HOOVES, CREAKING)
TR: Whoa. Whoa. (WHINNY, STOP) (GERMAN QUESTION)
GK: Sorry. Ich sprechen nicht deutsch.
TR: You're right. You don't, do you.
GK: You Amish?
TR: I'm not the Dalai Lama. Not Tommy Bahama. Not Adonis, Rahm Emanuel, Clarence Thomas, Michelle Obama, Whistler's Mama, or the Rama Lama Ding Dong.
GK: You look Amish.
TR: My horse thinks I am.
GK: Maybe you can help me. I'm looking for a young woman from Boston by the name of Kendra.
TR: Oh yes. Kendra. (BIG WHINNY) Whoa. Whoa. Easy.
GK: The horse seems to know her too.
TR: Yes. She tried to teach him to jump fences.
GK: He didn't like it.
TR: He's Amish. We're not jumpers. Both feet on the ground, as much as possible.
GK: So you know where I could find her?
TR: She's in there.
GK: In the art gallery?
TR: Yep. She's selling some paintings of mine.
GK: Oh. I didn't know Amish did paintings.
TR: That's why I have her representing me.
GK: You didn't do that painting in the window there, did you?
TR; I did.
GK: The one that looks like a Jackson Pollock?
TR: Who's he?
GK: Famous abstract painter.
TR: Never heard of him.
GK: So what made you do that painting?
TR: I was trying to paint a horse and I couldn't get the legs right and I got so mad I just picked up tubes of paint and threw them at the canvas as hard as I could.
GK: Doesn't sound very Amish.
TR: It's not. But they offered me fifteen thousand dollars for it.
GK: Huh.
TR: That's what I thought. I thought, if someone'll offer me fifteen thousand, maybe someone else will offer me thirty.
GK: You're not Jonah, are you?
TR: Nope. I'm his dad. Noah. Noah Hochstetter. But I sign my paintings Diego Santiago.
GK: Good idea.
TR: Yeah. People aren't going to pay thirty grand for a Noah Hochstetter. Diego Santiago, maybe. Oh, here she comes.
(FOOTSTEPS)
SS: I got it, Pops. Thirty grand. I think I could've gotten forty. They really really liked it. ---- Who's this?
GK: The name is Noir. Guy Noir, Kendra.
SS: I'm not Kendra anymore. My name is Charity.
GK: So you're serious about this?
SS: This is what I want to do. I think I always was Amish and I just didn't know it.
GK: Do you mind if we discuss it?
SS: The gift to be simple is the gift to be free, Is the gift to come down where we ought to be. And when we come down to the place just right.....
GK: We'll be in the valley of love and delight. I know, I know. But do you think how hard this is on your parents??
SS: My parents have more money than they know what to
do with and they're desperately unhappy, both of them, and I can't fix that. All I can do is what's right for me.
GK: Are you on drugs?
SS: No!
GK: Are you on some sort of IQ suppressant?
SS: No! I love him, Mr. Noir. Have you ever been in love?
GK: Often, and I always got over it. And so will you, Kendra. It just doesn't make sense for a Harvard honor student to go back to the 19th Century.
CHORUS: Oh my. Aren't you something? "Doesn't make sense for a Harvard honor student" -----
GK: Is there a crowd around here somewhere?
CHORUS: This is your conscience. Be glad you have one.
GK: I mean, how long have you been without Internet, Kendra? A week?
CHORUS: Her name is Charity.
GK: How long have you been without Internet, Charity?
SS: I'm learning to live in my surroundings. It's a beautiful world. I'm learning to pay attention to it. I'm learning to be free of cleverness and irony and put-downs and I'm learning to love bread-baking and gardening and tending goats. Have you ever been around goats, Mr. Noir?
GK: No, I haven't.
CHORUS: (GOAT SOUNDS)
GK: Okay, cut that out.
SS: Are you talking to me?
GK: No. Listen, Charity ----
TR: We'd better be going, Charity. Almost time for supper.
SS: I'm ready, Pops.
GK: Can I talk to you again tomorrow?
SS: I'm busy tomorrow. And Monday. How about Tuesday?
GK: Okay. Tuesday. Back here in Goshen.
TR: Giddup. (HORSE WHINNY, HORSE CLOPS AWAY)
CHORUS: So what are you going to do for three whole days in Goshen, Mr. Big Shot Detective?
GK: I'll be fine. Don't worry.
CHORUS: Las Vegas it isn't.
GK: I'll catch up on my sleep and go for brisk walks and eat light and settle down and enjoy a good book.
CHORUS: Eat light! Ha! Like the half-pound cheese steak sandwich you ate last night? And when was the last time you took a brisk walk?
GK: All right, all right. Leave me alone.
CHORUS: Which good book you talking about? The one in your suitcase? Shady Underwear?
GK: How did that get in my suitcase?
CHORUS: You bought it at the airport.
GK: I thought it was something else.
CHORUS: Like what? Fifty Shades of Underwear?
GK: Do I have that too?
CHORUS: You do.
(CELLPHONE RING)
GK: Excuse me. (PICK UP) Yeah. Noir here.
FN (ON PHONE): Hi, it's Kendra's dad in New York.
How's it coming?
GK: I spoke to her today and she looks fine, very happy, and I think she wants to make a life out here.
FN (ON PHONE): I want you to bring her back here. You've got to get her out of their clutches.
GK: I think she's the one doing the clutching.
FN (ON PHONE): That makes no sense at all. She had everything a person could want. Good school, great apartment, nice car, summer house, had it all. You've got to get her away from them. Please.
GK: I'm doing my best. I'll talk to her again on Tuesday.
FN (ON PHONE): Okay. Stay in touch.
GK: I will. Bye. (HANGS UP) (FOOTSTEPS, TRAFFIC)
CHORUS: Is this what you call a brisk walk, Mr. Noir?
GK: Give me a break, okay?
CHORUS: "Give me a break." This is what I'd call lumbering, Mr. Noir.
GK: Leave me alone. Please.
CHORUS: This is your conscience. I can't leave. I'm in you.
GK: Why are you suddenly pestering me now? Why?
CHORUS: This is what happens when you're around Mennonites.
GK: Well, just give it a break, okay?
CHORUS: What are you doing about the earthquake in Nepal, Mr. Noir?
GK: Leave me alone.
CHORUS: Homelessness? Hunger? (FAST FOOTSTEPS) Now that's what I call a brisk walk. (DOOR SLAM) Whoops, spoke too soon.
GK: I'm in the toilet. Could I please have a little privacy?
CHORUS: Are you concerned about government surveillance at all?
GK: Please. (TOILET FLUSH)
CHORUS: Do you realize how much water you just used? (BRIDGE)
GK: So I did what a lot of people do who have bad consciences? I got a pair of headphones. (SAXOPHONE) Listened to music. It shuts them out most of the time.
CHORUS: I'm still here.
GK: Not all the time but most of the time. (THEME)
TR: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets but one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions....Guy Noir, Private Eye. (THEME OUT)