(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.
GK: It was the end of August and I was in my office at the Acme Building where two guys were taking my dead air-conditioner out of the window. (MEN STRAINING, TALKING BACK AND FORTH)
FN: You got it?
TR: Yeah.
FN: You sure?
TR: Yeah.
FN: Okay. One. Two. Three---- (CRY OF ALARM, BIG CRASH. SMOOTH HUM)
GK: Well, look at that. You fixed it. All summer it wasn't working, now it's fine. Just in time for autumn. Cool.
FN: Whaddaya want us to do with the new one you ordered?
GK: Send it back. I don't need it now.
FN: You already paid for it. It's yours.
GK: It's still in your truck. So take it back, take the charge off my credit card.
FN: Say "please".
GK: "Please."
FN: You got it. Say "thank you".
GK: Thank you.
FN: See how that works? This is Minnesota, mister. (STING)
GK: It's true, people think of Minnesota as a state of very nice people, but I had been hired by a dentist from Minnesota to help him get out of a very bad situation.
TR: It's like this ----- My passion, in addition to making crowns, is big game hunting and this summer I went to Zimbabwe and lured a lion out of a game preserve --- you know, how people do ---- and shot him and made sandwiches out of him. So then this video got on the Internet of me with the dead lion and I had to take my family out to Alaska.
GK: For the privacy?
TR: Well, that and also because the hunting is so good.
GK: Oh my gosh. Give it up.
TR: I went out hunting in the woods up there and I shot a bear.
GK: Why?
TR: He was there. Standing in the path. Holding a shovel. I was afraid he was going to attack me.
GK: The bear was holding a shovel-----
TR: Right. And he had coveralls on and a ranger hat.
GK: You shot Smokey?????
TR: Well, now I know it ----
GK: How could you do it?
TR: It was a very easy shot, actually. He was right there. Blammo.
GK: You are in big trouble, mister.
TR: You're telling me. So this other bear was there with a jar of honey and I took a shot at him-----
GK: You took a shot at Winnie the Pooh?
TR: Well, I missed him. Hit the honey jar, missed the bear.
GK: Well, I hope you're all done with this.
TR: I sort of have my eyes on a sea lion.
GK: Don't do that, Doctor. There are laws. Only Natives can hunt sea lions.
TR: Well, I found a friendly Native who is going to help me.
GK: Don't do it, Doctor.
TR: I only want one sea lion. Just one.
(BRIDGE)
GK: He was a jerk and I didn't want to take the case but on the other hand I fantasized that if I met him I might have the chance to punish him. (DREAM CHORDS)
GK: Open wide.
TR: No! No! Please! Don't drill! Please!
GK: : I'm going to give you some nitrous oxide now.
TR: Please. No. Stop.
GK I'm going to pull your wisdom tooth, pal, except with you it ought to be called stupid tooth. (EXTRACTION, AND TR WHIMPERING) Hold still. Okay, here comes some water. (TR CHOKING) Okay, almost done. (EXTRACTION)
(BRIDGE) And just then..... (KNOCKS) ---- Who's there?
SS (OFF): Natalie.
GK: Come in. (DOOR OPEN) She walked in, wearing jeans so tight I could read the driver's license in her back pocket. The way she walked, it took your mind off the nuclear deal with Iran. ---What can I do for you, sweetheart?
SS: I'm Natalie Dressed.
GK: I should say you are.
SS: I'm a dental anesthetist. I'm with the Western Hennepin County Progressive Methodist Veterinary Dental Anesthetists Association ----
GK: The Veterinary Dental Anesthetists Association ---I see, but why the Methodist----
SS: To distinguish us from the Western Hennepin Mennonite Veterinary Dental Anesthetist Association. Or the Western Hennepin Presbyterian Veterinary Dental Anesthetist Association.
GK: How about the Western Hennepin Mormon Veterinary Dental Anesthetist Association.
SS: That too. We believe that animals, whether in captivity or in the wild, deserve first-rate dental care.
GK: Well, of course. Who could argue with that?
SS: The periodontal needs of penguins are a real priority with me. Without proper care and professional polishing a penguin is prone to pyorrhea. Have you ever flossed a penguin, Mr. Noir?
GK: I've never had the pleasure.
SS: Their mouths, after they feed on fish, are full of slime. They need more kelp in their diet, but they don't get it. Same with caribou. Terrible teeth.
GK: I see. But that's hygiene, not anesthesia.
SS: Before you can floss a penguin, you have to anesthetize them.
GK: Of course. Silly me.
SS: So we Methodists have joined with the Western Hennepin Mennonite Dental Anesthetists to form a Progressive Protestant Proactive Veterinary Dental Protective Collective.
GK: Okay. So how can I help?
SS: We dental anesthetists are apprehensive about this dentist you represent who is out to senselessly decimate defenseless sea lions.
GK: I see. But you're not a dentist----
SS: . I'm a dental anesthetist. An assistant dental anesthetist apprenticed to a dentist.
GK: I see. And you're apprehensive about the dentist, Dr. Dennis Swenson.
SS: Definitely. His stepdad Dr. Wesley Swenson of Center City, is a relentless predator who anesthetized his dental hygienist Janice Johnson intending to engage in sensuous adventures at a Best Western in Winnipeg.
GK: Sensuous adventures in Winnipeg. The man has an imagination. So Dr. Wesley Swenson, Dennis Swenson's stepdad, anesthetized his anesthetist.
SS: She was a hygienist. Not an anesthetist
GK: A Methodist hygienist?
SS: Mennonite.
GK: A Mennonite hygienist. Janice Johnson.
SS: A transgendered Mennonite hygienist.
GK: So what happened?
SS: She ran away with an entry level hedge fund investment executive.
GK: Listen, Natalie, I know your time is valuable. What do you want me to do about this dentist?
SS: Stop him. I've heard that he's out to get a sea lion.
(STING)
GK: So I flew to Alaska and I looked around for a bush pilot. Alaska is the Last Frontier and a lot of people wind up there who didn't feel at home in the lower 48. Old geezers demented from eating genetically modified food (SFX) and lowdown women (FN SEDUCTRESS) trying to lure men with saturated fats and fugitives from the Clean Air Act (SFX) and people who just want to get off the grid and live with their dogs (SFX) and not see anybody for months (SFX DEMENTED) and gun hobbyists who like to be able to hunt squirrels with bazookas (SFX) and AK-47s (SFX) and there I found a bush pilot named Bush who offered to fly me to the Arctic Slope.
TR (W): HEY. HOP IN. NO PROB. GET YOU THERE IN A JIFFY. Heh heh heh heh heh heh. (PLANE ENGINE STARTS UP, MISSING BADLY, COUGHING)
GK: And we got off the ground sort of (PLANE STALLING, REVVING) and we cleared the trees. (PLANE)
TR (W): You tell me where you want to go. You're the decider now.
GK: I want to find that dentist who's hunting the sea lion.
TR (W): Oh yeah. He's doing a heckuva job if you ask me. (PLANE DIVE, BRIDGE) ---
GK: We landed on a glacier and I saw Dr. Swenson crawling across an ice floe in search of the sea lion. (TR OFF: Here, sea lion. Daddy's got a handful of herring. (WALRUS) Unfortunately Dr. Swenson had mistaken a walrus for a sea lion. A common mistake. This is a sea lion (SFX) and this is a walrus (SFX). Sea lion (SFX), walrus (SFX). And this walrus was a very intelligent walrus. He approached Dr. Swenson and put his flippers around him.
FN (SINGS, AS WALRUS):
I am he as you are he as you are me
And we are all together
See how they run like pigs from a gun see how they fly
I'm crying
I am the walrus, goo goo g' joob.
GK: He was in love. He took away the dentist's bow-and-arrow and he took him into his ice cave and fed him on plankton and salmon and small rodents and he was so in love he wouldn't let him go (TR PROTEST, FN WALRUS LOVE) and there, I guess, the dentist is still living today. Kept warm by the adoration of a vertebrate the size of a compact car ---- male, female, who knows, what difference does it make.
FN (SINGS, AS WALRUS):
How could I dance with another Oooooooo
When I saw you standing there. (BRIDGE)
GK: I flew back home and at the Acme Building my air conditioner was still working great but it was sort of loose in the window and I didn't want to call the repairmen back so I got out my screwdriver and tightened it or thought I was tightening it and----- (SCREWS RIPPING FROM FRAME FROM WALL) Whooooaaaaaaaaaaa------ and it fell out (SFX) and I watched it fall twelve stories as people passed below on the sidewalk and one guy was about to walk directly underneath and then he turned back just as (CRASH) it landed right where he'd been standing a moment before.
FN: HEY!!!! THANKS!!!
GK: THANKS FOR WHAT???
FN: I WAS ON MY WAY TO APPLY FOR A JOB AND THEN I CHANGED MY MIND AND NOW I KNOW THAT WAS THE RIGHT DECISION.
GK: What was the job???
FN: Security.
GK: Yeah, that's a lousy job.
FN: What should I do instead?
GK: Fiction.
FN: Really?
GK: Why not? (THEME)
GK: (SINGS) He's smooth and he's cool, he's quick with a gun, a master in the boudoir. A man in a trenchcoat who gets the job done. That's me, Guy Noir.