MSTing EM103: "Name of the Game", with the short "Teamwork" --- Part 1 of 8 --- DISCLAIMER Mystery Science Theater 3000 and its characters Copyright 1999 Best Brains, Inc. Law and Order and its characters Copyright 1999 Dick Wolf Productions. "Name of the Game" Copyright 1998 Kit Montague. "Teamwork" Copyright 1998 Eddie Delaney Jr. This work is not meant as a personal attack on Kit Montague or Eddie Delaney Jr., and is for entertainment purposes only. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [OPEN ON: Best Brain's version of deep space - Opening credit sequence] THEME SONG GUY: In the not-too-distant future! Somewhere in time and space, Mike Nelson and his robot pals- [CUT TO: Pearl, dressed in a black jump suit, is agitated.] PEARL (interrupts song): -AREN'T footing your paycheck anymore, theme song guy! Have you missed a story meeting or something? Tony Or-Nelson and Dawn are gone, history, cavorting around Interspace trying to escape the clutches of Smelson's- wait, let me do the quote thing here- [Pearl takes two fingers from each hand and makes the "quote" gesture.] PEARL: "Evil Twin". Who in turn, stuck ME up here on this crummy Satellite of Luffa 'til he finds them. Which means, Harry Chapin Carpen-turd, that I'M in charge now! And I'd better start getting some star consideration, including but not limited to: a fridge full of Diet Dew, a personal stylist named Jean, Claude and/or Luc, oh and did I mention? A brand new Forrester-centric theme song befitting my new lead status! Now you just rewind, and start singing my praises. And and and! In key this time! [CUT TO: Brain's deep space, but a mirror takes up half the screen. Pan through: On the right is a smiling Mike Nelson, while on the left, in the mirror, is a sneering Evil Mike.] THEME SONG GUY: In the not-too-distant future In space that's parallel Mike Nelson had an evil twin As mean as he is swell [CUT TO: Pearl checking her lipstick in the rear view mirror.] THEME SONG GUY: Pearl Forrester and her rocket van messing with things she didn't understand [CUT TO: A model of the van flying through space bumps into the mirror and its view of Evil Mike. The mirror lurches out and takes over all the screen rather than half of it. Evil Mike laughs triumphantly in full screen.] THEME SONG GUY: Gave reality a firm hard shove And now Evil Mike's her master on the Satellite of Love! PEARL (spoken over): Now that was hardly my fault! [CUT TO: Evil Mike in the . His hands are fanning computer printouts and dime novels. He then moves to a chalkboard map of the galaxy, which has "MINE ALL MINE" graffitied over it.] EVIL MIKE: "I'll send her crummy postings! The worst that there are! While I work to rule the universe Every planet, moon and star!" PEARL (spoken over): The ham! [CUT TO: Framed photos of Brain Guy and Bobo, by a single lit candle.] THEME SONG GUY: Now keep in mind Pearl's sidekick pals are missing, presumed dead. [A hand holds a cigar over the candle. PULL BACK, we're on a smoke- filled , Pearl, lounging in a La-Z-Boy, brings the cigar to her mouth for a puff. A static portable TV with a beer can on it sits on the desk. Clothes are strewn everywhere, including over Gypsy, who's swiveling around in a daze.] THEME SONG GUY: But now she's on the satellite Filling everyone with dread! Robot Roll Call! THEME SONG GUY: Cambot! [CUT TO Pearl, arms folded, an unused mirror on the desk.] PEARL: I ain't holdin' that! THEME SONG GUY: Gypsy! [CUT TO Gypsy, with a dirty bra over her eye.] GYPSY: I'm blind! THEME SONG GUY: Magic Voice! MAGIC VOICE: We're doomed. THEME SONG GUY: Peeeeeeeearl! [Pearl knocks Gypsy out of shot.] PEARL: Fried chicken! THEME SONG GUY: If you're wondering how she eats and breathes, and other science fare, just remember that we don't like her much, and we really just don't care! On- [CUT TO: Pearl stares heatedly into the camera.] PEARL: Mister, I sure hope you like the wallpaper at the unemployment office, 'cuz if you think I'm cutting you a check after that tuneless piece of cra- [CUT TO: Evil Mike is writing a check.] EVIL MIKE: -ftsmanship! Sheer craftsmanship! I think I'll make it the national anthem of Portugal after I take over the universe! We'll be right back! [Commercials - Two guys in a Volkswagen. Da-da, da, da!] --------- [OPEN ON: Pearl has collapsed in a dirty Laz-E-Boy on the bridge, nursing a Red Dog. She is lit by the glow of a portable TV, playing a Bears-Redskins game which we hear in the background.] TV ANNOUNCER: Reskins back to pass... intercepted! The Bears return... fumbled! Redskins turn their heads to the action... whiplash! [Pearl sings morosely to herself. Gypsy, hesitantly, enters.] PEARL (sings): I'm a bitch, I'm a mother, I'm... something-or-other... GYPSY: Um, Pearl? PEARL (ignoring her): I'm a sinner, I'm a saint. I... (vamps) fry it up in a pan! GYPSY: Pearl! PEARL (not looking up): I don't talk to Shop Vacs, sweetie. GYPSY: I just wanted to see how you were doing. I mean, it must be hard, going from evil overlord to- PEARL (looking up in a very unsettling way): To what, dearie? A loser? A failure? The merest smear of slug slime squashed by the shoe of a nitwit not fit to CLEAN UNDERNEATH MY REFRIGERATOR?!? MAGIC VOICE: Hey, newbie! Lay off the Gypster. She's just doing what comes naturally for her. GYPSY: Yeah. MAGIC VOICE (muttering): Diving headlong into codependency. GYPSY: Why you little-! (lunges toward camera) PEARL (holds Gypsy back, then turns off TV): Whoa! Cease! Everybody take a moment. We're all on the same James Cameron luxury cruise to hell here. I think maybe we need to do one of them (shudders) girly wussy bonding things you see in ABC sitcoms. GYPSY: Yay! Let's give each other makeovers! MAGIC VOICE: But I don't have a body! PEARL (flummoxed): Well... jiminy hosophats! That didn't stop Kate Moss, did it? (light flashes) Oh, The Pretender's calling. [CUT TO: . A dungeon, with patented mad scientist consoles and Jacob's ladders and shiny blinking buttons to press. Evil Mike commands center stage.] EVIL MIKE: Ahoy there, Oyster Spit! Time now for the part of the show I enjoy next-to-the-most. That's where I drive a well-oiled, chopped and channeled comedy dragster down dead man's curve to boffo laughs, whilst you do a sad, rote little recitation that makes you question your will to breathe. Ready? Begin! [CUT TO: ] PEARL: What's he talking about? GYPSY: Oh, well about now Crow would come onto the bridge and start a premise. PEARL: What kind of a premise? GYPSY: Oo, I don't know. I was usually cleaning the dishes they'd left after snacktime. MAGIC VOICE: Mike would laugh at the premise, and Tom would disparage Crow's lack of intellectual capacity. PEARL: Huh. [Awkward pause.] GYPSY: Oh! Then Crow would leave the bridge and destroy himself. PEARL: No soap? GYPSY: Then he'd come back on the bridge, smouldering. And they'd laugh again. [Yet another awkward pause.] MAGIC VOICE: It was quite... disturbing, really. But... in a sad kind of way. [Still another awkward pause.] MAGIC VOICE: You were their captor! You must have seen them. PEARL: Oh. I was... um... well... Anybody got a premise, or anything? [Gypsy looks around, signaling a completely different awkward pause.] GYPSY: Um... you know how you only see the top two feet of my tubing? PEARL: No. GYPSY: Oh. [Son of the awkward pause.] MAGIC VOICE: Well what about the fact you can only see the top two feet of your tubing?! GYPSY: I don't know. I just seems odd to me. [U.S. Awkward Pause Marshals.] PEARL (to Gypsy): What was your name again? GYPSY (infuriated): You're not even trying! (storms off) MAGIC VOICE (as light flashes): Well that was fun. PEARL: Oh, bite me, HAL of Troy. [INSERT graphic of a night skyline of an undefined city, declaring that we're going to see "Another Late Show with Evil Mike". Theme music plays, a rock/jazz fusion of "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts".] EVIL MIKE (pretending to be announcer): It's "Another Late Show with Evil Mike"! Mike's guests tonight are... [INSERT b&w head shot photo of Evil Mike smiling at a kitten puppet.] EVIL MIKE: Himself! [INSERT b&w photo of Evil Mike smiling slyly, and pointing to a carrot he's holding up.] EVIL MIKE: Mike Nelson's twin! And, [INSERT b&w photo of Evil Mike looking demure in a blonde wig.] EVIL MIKE: Teri Garr! And now, a man so funny you'll remember to laugh, EVIIIIIILLLLLLLL, me! [CUT TO: , with a curtain lit by various colored spotlights. Evil Mike, in a three-piece suit, strides out confidently to canned applause.] EVIL MIKE: Ha-hah! So good to be here. Just flew in from a parallel universe, and boy! Huh? [Silence.] EVIL MIKE: I tell ya. Do we have any parallel universe people here tonight? [Dead silence.] EVIL MIKE: Oh. Well... I guess... that material wouldn't make much sense, then. But everyone hates the airlines, right? Ha! What is with... (suddenly realizes he doesn't know where he's going) these... airplane guys. And their airplanes! I mean... two wings? What, one isn't enough? [Dead silence. Somone in the audience coughs. EM is petrified.] EVIL MIKE (desperate): Ha ha! Ha! Ha! Well, I bet... whoever ruined those airplanes... um... I'll bet you... uh... it was a woman! [CUT TO: .] PEARL, GYPSY, MAGIC VOICE: HEY! [CUT TO: . Now Evil Mike is wearing a motorcycle jacket, smoking a cigarette, and talking in a deeper voice, as if he were from Bensonhoist.] EVIL MIKE: Hey, yeah, I tell you what. Women suck! BOOM! [The audience laughs at the slur.] EVIL MIKE: Ha! And what with them stinkin' immigrants, huh? They think they're better than us? I say, I say, I say, BOOM! [Audience laughs, and applauds. A hooting chant rolls down from them.] EVIL MIKE: Ha! Yeah, baby, that's right! You know you want it. BOOM! [CUT TO: . Pearl is fuming silently, scarily.] MAGIC VOICE: Boom? What's with the boom? GYPSY: I always thought "boffo" meant something dirty, but my word! [CUT TO: . The audience laughs at every BOOM!] EVIL MIKE: Hey yeah, you been a great audience, up yours! BOOM! Ha! Now tonight we have with us another example of something you chicks ruined. It's called "Name of the Game", and it's a very disturbing fanfic of the Emmy award winning drama "Law and Order", full of evil twins and burgeoning loins and three minute kisses and all that other Barbara Cartland crap! BOOM! But first, let's make degrade and welcome our first guest, a female growth fantasy called "Teamwork". BOOM! [Audience applauds.] [CUT TO: Dark, except for a sinister spotlight on Pearl.] PEARL: Oh, you'll pay for this, Bride of Nelson. Mark me well- you- [Buzzer interrupts, movie sign flashes.] GYPSY: Whoa, Pearl, we got fiction sign! PEARL: Huh? No, no, I gotta finish my portending threat here. GYPSY: No time! Fiction sign! [Pearl is pushed to the side.] PEARL: Ugh! Pay! You'll- oh, fudgebuckets. | 6 |... ( 5 )... [ 4 ]... > 3 <... = 2 =... / * \ [CUT TO: Theater. Gypsy and Pearl enter.] PEARL: Oh, man. My achin' dogs. GYPSY: Why did Dr. Forrester design a six-door airlock for the theater anyway? PEARL: Oh, probably some federal hazardous waste regulation. If he'd taken over the world, he wouldn't'a had that problem! > TEAMWORK PEARL: Oh, Teamwork! The story of a... team. That... works. MAGIC VOICE (suddenly, from nowhere): Don't force it, newbie. PEARL (startled): Gah! What- you?! MAGIC VOICE: Oh, what? You thought I was just gonna putter around the bridge baking cookies? PEARL: Stop sneakin' up on people like that! Get a body, like a normal person! MAGIC VOICE (muttered insult): Corporalist! > by Eddie Delaney, Jr. GYPSY: Oo. You know, by the time this is through, I'll bet we wish they stopped at the first one. PEARL: That could well be. > > Dr. Timothy Ryan had drastically miscalculated the strength of his >formula. MAGIC VOICE: It made him all urpy! > He cursed himself for not being able to fore- see this > outcome, or finding an antidote as well. PEARL: Wow, a reckless scientist's experiment runs out of control. How unforseeable. > The tiny chimp had grown into > a monstrous colossus, GYPSY: Flagrantly violating a series of RKO trademarks. > destroying half of the city, killing thousands > of people. PEARL (as Charlton Heston): I finally did it! Damn me all to hell! GYPSY: He destroyed half the city, but only a thousand died? MAGIC VOICE: Yes, welcome to Casper- opportunity capital of Wyoming! > All of his studies had been done, none of the results > showed this type of amaz- ing growth. PEARL: -in his real estate portfolio- with no money down! > The chimp had only taken 2 > ounces of the formula, and it grew from a little under 2 feet, to an > unbelievable 400 feet. GYPSY: What'll they tell FEMA? MAGIC VOICE (newscaster): Authorities were unprepared for the sudden appearance of Hurricane Zippy. > Remarkably, it's musculature increased > dramatically as well. PEARL: Unremarkably, its head stayed the size of a small cantaloupe. > Now, the newly-created monster was wreaking its' > havoc, GYPSY: You know, chimps are pretty smart. Maybe he's carefully conducting some strategically-planned havoc. > and Dr. Ryan did not know what to do. PEARL: Put you head between your knees and kiss your- GYPSY: You watch your mouth, young lady! The Satellite of Love is not a construction site! PEARL (resentful): Hey, who's running this show, anyway? MAGIC VOICE: Gypsy. GYPSY: We can talk about it, Pearl. I just don't know if I can do that and keep Life Support running at the same time. PEARL (after a pause): I think I have newfound respect for you, Shop Vac. > He was person- ally > responseable for the greatest disaster in this city's history. MAGIC VOICE: What, he directed the community theater? ALL (sing): JO-seph! JO-seph! Is it really you? > ***************************************** > The giant chimp had a hold > of the traincar, PEARL: Yes, that's right - THE traincar! No autographs, please! Make way! > closely exam- ining it MAGIC VOICE: Oh, no, it's the Barefoot Executive- and he's downsizing! > before throwing it hundreds of > feet. PEARL: (laughing) It's a 400-ft monkey with the arm strength of Emo Phillips. > The train ex- ploded on impact, GYPSY: Oh, my! I didn't know they made gas-powered trains! MAGIC VOICE: This could negatively impact the light-rail zeppelin industry. >instantly killing all of the people inside. PEARL: But, we didn't know them very well, so screw'em! > The monster looked around, hearing a heavy rumbling > sound. MAGIC VOICE: Mighty Joe Dung! PEARL: Hey! That was way dirtier than what I said before! GYPSY: You two play nice. > Tanks were making their way towards it. ALL: (silent-movie sneaking music) Dum, dum, dum, dum, DAAAAAAAAH, dum-dum-dum-dum... > They stopped to zero in > on their target and fired away. GYPSY: No, men! TOWARDS! Fire towards! > The shells exploded harm- lessly on > the chimp, merely annoying it. PEARL: How rude! GYPSY: How gauche! MAGIC VOICE: This simply ISN'T Marquis of Queensbury rules! > It reared up its e- normous fist and > came crashing down on 2 of the tanks, crush- ing them flat. PEARL: You know, this was Spielberg's original ending to "Saving Private Ryan". GYPSY: I don't think that's true, Pearl. PEARL: No, it's a joke, honey. It's just a joke. > The other > tanks quickly fired again, GYPSY: The army's sort of one-trick pony, isn't it. > this time at a much closer range. MAGIC VOICE: Oh, the new supersonic tanks. > Again, > the shells had no effect, PEARL: The shells aren't working! Ready the manicotti! > and again the angered chimp crushed the > remaining tanks. GYPSY: This is some poorly-considered tank spacing. PEARL: Attack formation by Admiral Kimmel. GYPSY (confused, turning to Pearl): Was that a Star Trek reference or something? PEARL: No! Admiral Kimmel! The guy who kept the planes parked too close together at Pearl Harbor! (pause) Anybody? MAGIC VOICE (derisively): Ach! Newbies! > It was beginning to look as if nothing could stop > this gargantuan- monstrosity. MAGIC VOICE: Ethnocentricity strikes again. Hyphenated Americans beget hyphenated monstrosities. PEARL: Meanwhile, there's a group from PETA, marching down the street, waving banners, cheering the monkey on. >******************************************* > Joyce Ryan GYPSY: Meg's sister. > had seen her > husband at both ends of the emo- tional spectrum. MAGIC VOICE: Dull surprise, and surprisingly dull. > Pure joy over his > discovery, and absolute dejection as it all went horribly astray. PEARL: Monkey eats town. Bummer. > He > was in a state of shock over the monster he had unwittingly created. GYPSY: Well why was he trying to make a big monkey in the first place? MAGIC VOICE: He should have used a yellowfin tuna. Then there'd be sashimi for everybody! > Usually Timothy was the strong one, but in this case, she would have > to be the one to take charge. GYPSY: Oo, I read in "Redbook" that most marriages fall into that pattern. PEARL: Men take out the garbage, and women exterminate the 400-ft gibbon. It's only fair. > In the process, she would gain the > notoriety that her husband had usually grabbed. MAGIC VOICE: She would be the one with the ill-conceived hare-brained scheme this time! PEARL: She would be the one grilled by Tim Russert on "Meet the Press"! > She would take the > formula that had turned the little chimp into a col- lossus. MAGIC VOICE: It was in the fridge, next to the water from the Holy Grail. > She > wondered, what would it do to her. PEARL: It would lecture her about her eating habits and make her take a spinning class! > Joyce knew it was up to her and her > girlfriend Laura to stop this creature. GYPSY: Why Laura? > She called up Laura, telling > her to come over, MAGIC VOICE: I made blondies! > she would need her help for this. PEARL: Yeah, no rush though, the chimp's just destroying our remaining infrastructure, but you finish up your bagel there. GYPSY: But why Laura? MAGIC VOICE: We don't know! Quit asking! > Joyce took the > remaining amount of formula, about 1 quart, and divided it in half. PEARL: No, not with a knife! >There was a knock on the door, MAGIC VOICE: It wasn't supportive of its friends in hard times. GYPSY: Hey, quit knocking the door. > and in walked Laura. > " Oh my God, what the hell is going on," Laura shrieked as she > walked in! [ALL laugh.] PEARL: That's the best entrance since Barbarella's weightless striptease in a furry spaceship. > We should be > evacuating the city like everyone else." MAGIC VOICE: No, that would make sense. GYPSY: So how did Laura make her way across town with a giant monkey on the rampage? PEARL: Well, maybe it's San Francisco, and she used public transport. GYPSY: Oo, BART runs through anything. >" I have something else >in mind, a way where we'll be a lot safer," Joyce responded calmly. PEARL (narrator): There was a darkness in her eyes that day... > " What have you got in mind....I mean how are we....." MAGIC VOICE (Laura): 'Cuz I can't touch your... unless you take off that... GYPSY: You can see why General Hospital was so dependent on this character. PEARL: Um, that's a different Laura, actually. > Joyce walked >over to the table where the formula was. " You know the old saying, >'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em?, MAGIC VOICE (Joyce): Well, put on these tap shoes and that gorilla costume! We're gonna sing "Abba Dabba Honeymoon" like it's never been sung before! > well, we're gonna take that old > monkey down to size!" PEARL: Oh, look. Why don't you just give the formula to Joan Embry and let her take care of it? > " We're gonna what, Laura cried > incredulously, " how the hell do you plan on doing that?" GYPSY: I know this is written, but Laura sounds dubbed. PEARL: Do NOT have Fran Drescher help exterminate your marmoset. > " Simple, we just drink this," Joyce held up the form- ula. GYPSY: One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small! MAGIC VOICE: Here are the ones mother gave me... kinda lame, actually. > " Are you crazy or > something, I don't want to turn into a monster....." PEARL: It's a bit late for that, darlin'. > Joyce was > amazed at her friends' reluctance, MAGIC VOICE: She fell for the Herbal Essence commercials, but not gigantism! Go figure. > "a mon- ster?, are you nuts, we'll > be giantesses, absolutely huge goddesses. [All chortle.] PEARL (Joyce): We won't be monsters, we'll be hideous mutants! GYPSY: Well, one man's mate is another man's monster. PEARL: That's true, I guess. > If you don't like it, Thomas > will give you the antidote after we take care of that overgrown > chimpanzee." GYPSY: You mean, the antidote he's not using right now because he didn't make one? MAGIC VOICE: Uh, sorry, there's a no-return policy on genetic mutations. There's a small sign by the register there. > "All my life I sat around as my husband tried different > things. GYPSY (Joyce): Like duct tape, and those chocolate-covered coffee beans! > I did'nt because I was too scared to try anything, PEARL (Joyce): Even gravy gave me the heebie-jeebies! > but its time > that I do something crazy. MAGIC VOICE (Joyce): I'm gonna star in a Joe Esterhauz movie! > Its time that little Joyce Ryan becomes >someone, GYPSY (Joyce): Like Alice McFennery, or Betty Calypso! PEARL: Huh? GYPSY: Well, they're someone... aren't they? PEARL: No. >besides, what have we got to lose. If we don't take the >formula, there's a good chance we'll die anyway. MAGIC VOICE: Oh, there's an upside! GYPSY: This is the weirdest remake of "Lorenzo's Oil". >This way we get to be >heroes, PEARL: -just for one day. >or heroines for that matter. GYPSY: Heroin's not for any matter, young lady! No more Courtney Love records for you! > Come-on Laura, MAGIC VOICE: Sexy Sadie's cousin! > what do you say? > Laura thought about it for a second and then quickly a- greed, > "oh, what the hell!" PEARL: Well as long as she took a full second. GYPSY: Yeah, it would be different if she were rushed. MAGIC VOICE: This moment of conformity brought to you by Big Tobacco! If your friends jump off a bridge- it must be pretty cool! > Joyce handed Laura her portion of the magic >formula. PEARL: Play a swamp, Mox Emerald, tap-tap, then get a life. > They both looked at it before finally drinking up every fan- > tastic drop. MAGIC VOICE: Hey, don't bogart the radioactive growth hormone! PEARL (Joyce): Oh, say, you didn't have epilepsy or a heart condition, did you? > The effect was instantaneous, Joyce felt a surge of > power shoot through her entire body. PEARL: GYPSY: Hey! PEARL: Sorry. > She looked down and was astonished to see herself growing out > of her clothes. MAGIC VOICE (Joyce): My DK's! > She looked over > at Laura and was amazed to see how muscular she was becoming, then > she realized the exact same thing was hap- pening to herself. PEARL (Joyce): The expected is a constant surprise to me! GYPSY: So, does this make Emily's List obsolete? MAGIC VOICE: I don't think so. > Layer upon > layer of thick, massive muscles were sprouting up all over their > bodies. It seemed as if their muscles were growing right on top of > each other. MAGIC VOICE: (sings) Ch-ch-ch-chia! > They were growing 10 feet a second, GYPSY: They're breaking the taste barrier! > rapidly bursting > through the roof, passing 100 feet tall easily. PEARL: Their heads hit the ceiling at ten feet per second, smashing their skulls like clay pots, and they die of internal hemorrhaging. The end. GYPSY: No, it's not the end, Pearl. See, there's lots more after this. PEARL: It's a joke, Gypsy! Jeez Louise! Get with the program! > Their breasts were > growing out of proportion to their newly-immense bodies, if that was > at all possible. GYPSY: Pearl, what are breasts? MAGIC VOICE: Yeah, and why would we care what size they were? PEARL: Uhhhh... candy! Auntie Pearl has candy! Who wants candy? GYPSY: Yay! Candy! [Logo, Commercial - Can't the car just knock that kid and his tuba off the screen? --- End Part 1 --- Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us some e-mail. pinkboybuffet@hotmail.com Next --- Home "Name of the Game" with the short "Teamwork" --- Part 2 of 8 --- [OPEN ON: Theater. Pearl, Gypsy and Magic Voice continue riffing "Teamwork".] > " I feel soooooo wonderful...." MAGIC VOICE: Ugh, I don't like Frosted Flakes' new slogan! > Laura could hardly > be- lieve that she was at first reluctant to do this. PEARL: Embrace the madness, Laura. > They now began growing hundreds of feet a second..... GYPSY: And... there's nothing to add to that, really. > " My body is throbbing with power, MAGIC VOICE (Laura): That is, I assume it's power. I hope it's not an aneurysm. PEARL: Eh, they're just going to take jobs away from better qualified male giants. > I feel like I could lift the entire > earth!" GYPSY: What would you stand on? > Joyce said as > she began flexing her unreal muscles. PEARL (sighing): Criminy. This guy uses more adjectives than Robin Leach. > They soon reached over 1000 > feet tall, and they still continued growing. MAGIC VOICE (impatiently): The oxygen thins out, they asphyxiate, collapsing on Tim Ryan, squashing him flat. The End! > Laura looked down on the > ever-shrinking world around her, GYPSY: Lookin' down on creation? PEARL: Well, it's the only explanation I can find. > awed by her goddess-like body. MAGIC VOICE: Huh. So she has eight arms and a serpent's torso now? > She > realized that she was able to see the giant chimp, in fact, she was > looking down on it. GYPSY: She came to realize that when she looked at stuff, she saw things. MAGIC VOICE: Yup, it's gonna be a pleasure heeding the holy words of these gods. PEARL (as Ahab): Argh, there be the great white chimp, laddies! > " Hey Joyce, we're already 3 times the size of > that little monkey!" MAGIC VOICE (Laura): I think I'll write a psalm about it! "Hallowed be my name, my kingdom come, I'm so much staggeringly bigger than that stupid monkey, tra-la!" > " That little monkey is over 200 feet tall! MAGIC VOICE: What, he shrunk in half since the story started? GYPSY: At this rate he'll disappear before those two finish bragging! > Still, he looks puny to me, let's stomp him flat." PEARL: Oh, they're Old Testament goddesses. GYPSY: He really didn't scale this very well. Stomping that chimp's gonna be like stomping a basset hound. > The two > giantesses looked around them, everything seemed so tiny. MAGIC VOICE: If Jonathan Swift had been dumb as a post! > Their > impossibly huge, naked bodies must have been ov- erwhelming to the > miniscule inhabitants of the city below them. PEARL (Edgar from "Bullwinkle"): Now there's something you don't see everyday, Chauncey. MAGIC VOICE (Chauncey): What's that, Edgar? PEARL (Edgar): Vishnu appearing in the form of a Playboy centerfold. > Knowing that the people > would be in a state of panic as a result of their sudden appearance, GYPSY: Wouldn't it be fairer to say that the state of panic was the result of the ape's massive killing spree, and that their sudden appearance merely exacerbated it? MAGIC VOICE: Gyps? As a friend? Stop overthinking. I'm begging you. GYPSY (slightly dejected): Oh. OK. > Joyce decided to put them at ease,"LISTEN TO ME......" PEARL (laughing): Oh, good, giants bellowing orders! That calms ME right down. > Her voice was > deafening, shattering windows throughout the city. MAGIC VOICE: Bill Gates is furious! And yet, strangely attracted to these plucky giants. > She would have to > whisper, she thought to herself. GYPSY: She could do charades. [Pearl begins to do unidentifiable charade motions as Magic Voice guesses.] MAGIC VOICE: First word. Vend... gent, vengeance? Is mine... swayeth... no, sayeth! Sayeth the lord! Yes! > "We're here to help, we're not > going to destroy anything but that monster out there" PEARL (Joyce): Except for those windows. And the house we grew out of. And it seems I'm standing on a day care center. > she said as low > as possible MAGIC VOICE: Barry White! PEARL (as Barry White): Oh, baby. I loooove, killin' chimps. >, be- ing careful not to do anymore damage. > "That's right", Laura added, "let the big girls handle this from > here on in!" PEARL (crowd): Oh, OK, great! So you're just filling in 'til they arrive, then? GYPSY: Why Laura? > Boy, to think that she was worried about becoming a mon- ster a few > minutes ago, she sure was begining to enjoying this. MAGIC VOICE: "Roseanne: Portrait of An Ego" will return after these messages. PEARL: Their skeletons, too weak to support their mass, collapse, their heads fall seventy stories and burst on impact with the ground, they die an agonizing death. The End. > "Hey Joyce, I'd love to see this monkey try to lift us up and > carry us up the Empire State Building. He'd probably have a hernia!" MAGIC VOICE (weakly): Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha. PEARL (as chimp): Yeah, look lady, I'm just looking for that bastard in the yellow hat. > *************************************************** > Dr. Ryan looked > up in awe..... ALL: Awwwwwww! >his wife's foot was over 300 feet long, the size of an > entire football field. GYPSY: WHAT IS WITH THE SCALE HERE?! MAGIC VOICE: What, she mutated into Bozo the Clown all of a sudden? > One false step by her and he would be squished > flat! He could'nt get over how huge she had become. PEARL: You know, if she had joined the Bears, they might have gone 8-8 this season. > He felt a weird > sense of pride in his colossal achievement. Boy was she beautiful. MAGIC VOICE (Tim): Say, we could sneak into a swank hotel and my wife would never... oh wait. > Perhaps now, she could destroy the abomination that he had mistakenly > created. PEARL: Yeah, Laura! MAGIC VOICE: Yeah, do it! Kill Laura! Whoo! GYPSY: I can't get into killing her. I don't know why she's here! MAGIC VOICE: So you're asking, "Why Laura?", then. GYPSY: Yeah! > This formula was much too powerful to not be destroyed. MAGIC VOICE: Well I think it's much too NOT powerful to not NOT be destroyed! > If it > ever fell into the wrong hands.... the results would be > catastrophic! PEARL: Yeah, thank god his wife drank it before THAT happened! > Suddenly a huge shadow blocked out the sun from his view, his > gigantic wife was bending over to pick him up! MAGIC VOICE: Everything under the sun is in tune, but the sun is eclipsed by- Joyce! GYPSY: Wouldn't he just look like one little ant among many? How would she recognize him? PEARL: Maybe he's standing in front of a big billboard for Dumbass Scientist cigarettes. > She extended her tremendous > hand for him to step into. MAGIC VOICE (Tim): Uh... hi honey! Um, you're not still mad about that "need to lose weight" crack, are ya? PEARL (Joyce): Hey, Tim, get this... (sings) HAAAAAND across America! Ha! That's a little joke, Tim. Only thing little about me! Hey-o! > They were so large, he had to climb up her > finger to get inside her palm. GYPSY: Oo, if she has a hangnail, it'd be the size of a driveway! >"Timothy, I have a confession", she was >giggling slight- ly, MAGIC VOICE (Joyce): I ate all the Frusen Gladje. No, not from the fridge- I actually ate ALL the Frusen Gladje. >"I drank some of your formula....", her voice was > deafen- ing at this close a range. She was incredibly turned on, GYPSY: -tuned in, and dropped out. > being > able to lift up her husband in her hand as if he were some kind of > doll. PEARL: Ken's ineffectual brother, Eugene. > "This is the most amazing thing that I've ever expierien- ced in > my life!" MAGIC VOICE (Joyce): Way better than IMAX! > He looked up at his titanic wife, GYPSY: Kate Winslet! PEARL: So, the author basically has a thesaurus open to the word "big". MAGIC VOICE: Well, at least he's not going alphabetically. > "It is for me also.... GYPSY: -but why Laura? > I > can't believe how incredibly sexy you are! You're my own goddess > come to life. PEARL: Oh, he's one of them pagan doctors. MAGIC VOICE: The AMA frowns on this- but at least he's not a chiropractor. > I have a confession myself, I developed this formula with the > hope that you would want to take it. PEARL: Of course, it was conceptualized as a bitch remover. GYPSY: I better lower the oxygen level a bit. PEARL: Kidding! I kid! I'm a kidder. > I just never knew that it would > work so well!" GYPSY: "Well" being an incredibly flexible term, apparently. MAGIC VOICE: I love you just the way- you will be when I've changed you. > Looking down lovingly at her husband, PEARL (sings): Love... soft as a 600-ft tall easy chair... > "Well > sweatheart, its' time to go to work. GYPSY: Batman! PEARL: No, she's temping as a sadist. > Unless you want that overgrown > chimp to cause anymore damage?" MAGIC VOICE (Tim): Well, if you could hold off 'til he levels Trump Castle Hotel and Casino... > "No, I think I'll enjoy seeing you > rip him to shreds, or just squash him flat." PEARL: Oh, gross. Now we're making Chimp Francese? GYPSY (Tim Ryan): And dredge him in flour. And lightly fry him. And finish him in a lemon sauce, and serve with a light Riesling! > She thought about each >for a moment..."Don't worry, you'll get to see both!" MAGIC VOICE (Tim): Well, I won't actually see it... I mean, I'll be staring at your chest no matter what you do. PEARL: Hey! You said you didn't know about breasts. [Gypys and Magic Voice snicker.] > She bent over > and gently placed him on top of the largest building around her, in > order for him to get a fanta- stic view. PEARL (Tim): Uh, honey, this building has a slanted roof. Honey? HOOONEEEEEEEEY!!! >With her husband safely out >of harms' way, she set off for the chimp. GYPSY: Making base camp at the mongoose, navigating by the light of the albatross. MAGIC VOICE: That's... better, I guess. GYPSY: Thank you! > She looked over to see that > Laura already had the chimp in her grasp. MAGIC VOICE: Teamwork, ladies and gentlemen! Teamwork! PEARL: No, seriously, why Laura though? I mean, why? GYPSY: That's what I've been saying. > She was holding it up by the > top of its' head while it tried futily to hit her. It was screeching > horribly, shattering windows for miles. PEARL: These would be the windows Joyce didn't break originally. MAGIC VOICE: This town will never escape the iron fist of the glazier industry. > The chimp, for all its' great > size, looked like a little infant compared to Laura and herself. PEARL: Awwww... wook at da wittle chimpy. GYPSY: I will hug him and squeeze him and pet him and love him... and call him George! MAGIC VOICE: Now see! You're getting the hang of it! > Walking over to Laura, the ground shaking with every step she took, >she also grabbed the chimp by the top of its' head, PEARL: He's got encephalitis! MAGIC VOICE: Rush Chimpbaugh. (laughs) 'Cuz he's got a swollen head, you see... > "Hey Laura, you've > had your fun. PEARL (Joyce): -using the Sydney Opera House to scrape your feet. GYPSY: Ew, blech! > Let me have a try." GYPSY (Laura): OK. Ahem! We're representatives of Samsonite luggage. We do not appreciate your treatment of our products. MAGIC VOICE: Oo, Gyps is in the zone, Pearl! Look at her go! PEARL (resentful): Yeah, whatever. > "Alright, now that you're done > with itty-bitty Thomas", she laughed out. PEARL: Oh, he invented that book light. GYPSY: You know, she didn't really do anything. They've just stood around boasting about how "unbelievably huge" they are. MAGIC VOICE: Yeah, they're a bad parody on a flat satire of a "Hans and Franz" sketch. > "Hey, what's your problem? > If it was'nt for Thomas' formula, PEARL (Joyce): -you wouldn't be enjoying those fork-split English muffins! GYPSY: With nooks and crannies- to hold the melted butter! > you'd still be getting the shit > kicked out of you by your loser husband!" PEARL: Yeah, just wait, Joyce. Next week, Laura'll have a black eye, and mumble excuses about how she walked into a quarter-mile-high door. > This insult got Laura's >huge muscles boiling, MAGIC VOICE: Rebuilt metaphors! Get'em while they're mixed! > "Yeah... well at least my husband is not some > little pencil-neck geek like yours is!" GYPSY: Oh, ick! Proffering spousal abuse as a virtue! PEARL: Yeah, they could pluck the limbs off that chimp one-by-one, and this would still be the low point right here. > "Listen, we can settle our > personal dispute after we take care of the chimp, got it?" PEARL: You know- teamwork! > Laura, feeling foolish, quickly agreed, "Let's go squash it flat!" MAGIC VOICE (as chimp, dangling from their grasp): Look, don't talk about me like I'm not even here, Laura. Grant me that dignity at least. > With that Joyce held down the giant chimp, laying it flat on the > ground. PEARL (chimp): Wait, there's been a mistake! I'm here to meet Jessica Lange! > Laura lifted up her heavily-muscled leg, and held her 300 foot long > foot in the air momemtarily. GYPSY: No, we can rehabilitate him! We've got a half-way house! And midnight basketball! >"Say goodnight King Kong...and say hello > to Queen Laura!" MAGIC VOICE: Oh, this is the worst Far Side cartoon ever! PEARL (chimp): I was framed! I'll give you Vacco! Call the D.A, the Pope, the Nigerian ambassador, noooooo! > She slammed her foot down, a huge squishing noise > was heard throughout the city. MAGIC VOICE (Joyce, answering phone): Hello? The governor? Uh, could you call back, we're kinda busy. > She felt immensely powerful as she > squished this gigantic monkey flat with her own bare feet! PEARL: Yeah, but she still runs screaming if there's a moth in the bathroom. >She was the >most powerful person alive, she thought to herself. Except for Joyce, >that was. GYPSY: And Alan Greenspan, probably. > Flexing her huge thigh muscles as she grinded the remains > into the ground, PEARL: Justice, tempered with mercy, less, ness. GYPSY: You know, if the author never learned the word 'huge', there wouldn't be story! >she heard a collective gasp from the tiny people > beneath her. MAGIC VOICE: Those aren't gasps, Laura. Go get some sawdust. > What a show she was putting on for them, she thought. GYPSY: Ugh! This is like showing "Mondo Cane" on public television. > But > did they really deserve it? PEARL: Yes! If they were all telemarketers, coke dealers, John Birchers, and Howard Stern fans. > Suddenly, Laura heard joyce calling her, > breaking heer train of thought. MAGIC VOICE (laughs): I think a peacock feather could derail that train, pretty much. > "Hey Laura, thanks for saving some for > me. GYPSY: But you were right there holding the thing down! > You took care of it with one shot!" MAGIC VOICE: Oh, what, they wanted to torture it before carrying out their self-proclaimed execution? PEARL: Well, maybe they're Texans. MAGIC VOICE: It would explain a lot, actually. > "Oh well. but at this size, > I don't have to answer to anyone!" GYPSY: And lack of accountability is the essence of teamwork! MAGIC VOICE: Oh, man, if Ken Starr is standing behind her holding a subpoena, she's going to feel so embarrassed. > Joyce should have forseen this. PEARL: Which was why we've been asking- ALL (sing): Why-y-y-y-y-y-y Laura-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!!! [All clap.] PEARL: Thank you! She's Gyps, that's Madge, I'm TrÈ Pearl, we've been the Why Laura Trio! Get home safe folks! Good night! > All her life, Laura had been abused by first her father, and now her > husband. MAGIC VOICE: And soon by Lawrence Phillips. > She had been made to feel small. Now, besides herself, she > was the biggest thing the world had ever seen, GYPSY: Uh, there is this little object called "the sun". > and she was expierien- > cing a mad power-lust. PEARL (Laura, mad): Ha-ha, now I can store stuff on the top shelf- all the way in the back of the cabinet- and no one can stop me! No one! Bwah-ha-ha-ha! > Joyce thought her problems were over when the > monkey had been killed, but now, she had a revenge- crazed giantess > on her hands. MAGIC VOICE: Yeah, you're gonna get that with your genetic mutation. That's why we recommend the service contract. > Fortunately, she had a slight size edge, but nonetheless, > this was going to be a killer. PEARL: So. Thumb wrestle? [Pearl and Gypsy and Magic Voice leave the theater.] MAGIC VOICE (sings like Peter Gabriel): And my heaven will be a big heaven! And I will stomp on the big chimp! ALL: BIG CRAP! / * \... = 2 =... > 3 <... [ 4 ]... ( 5 )... | 6 |... [OPEN ON: Bridge. Gypsy is alone, and confused. Taped to her head are two monkey arms, two monkey legs, and on top, a monkey head.] GYPSY: Oo. I wonder how Mike, Tom, and that gold guy are doing. Hm. [The sides of the screen start to swim. Pearl suddenly enters, dressed as a Jolly Green Giantess, and grabs the screen to straighten it out.] PEARL: Hey, hey hey, hey, hey! Hey! Stop segueing out of my skit, Shop Vac. GYPSY: Oo, but I was just wondering how Mike, Tom, and that- PEARL: Well, don't! I only got so much screen time to impress Katzenberg and Company back on earth. Iggy, you got your Judge Judy costume on yet? MAGIC VOICE (slowly, pissed): I DON'T... HAVE... A BODY! PEARL: Oh, right. Well, pretend, OK? GYPSY: I wonder how- PEARL: Hush! OK, The People Court Disaster, take one! MAGIC VOICE (as Judge Judy): All right, I've read your complaint. Lemme get this right. You're big? PEARL: Very big, your honor. Immensely huge. Gargantuan, vast, tremendous, broad, gigantic, colossal, sizable, large, massive... [During this recitation, Cambot CLOSES IN on Gypsy, who stares ahead.] GYPSY (internally): I wonder how Mike, Tom, and that gold guy are doing. Hmm... [The screen goes swimmy, to eerie, dreamy music.] [CUT TO: , the space between space and space. It is pure whiteness, nothing else. Dream music continues. Gradually, from above, Mike Nelson floats down into the shot. His arms are outstretched, flapping slightly as if to slow his descent. He looks fantastically happy.] MIKE (thinking): Wow. This is fantastic! We're leaving Interspace, floating down to the Living Planet, and perhaps our deaths. Yet I've never felt so free! I'm at one with the cosmos, peaceful, centered. Able to control my mind, and my body, with just a thought! [Mike floats down out of the shot. Tom Servo floats down into the shot, bobbing as he hovers with his skirt rotating.] TOM (thinking): Wow. This is fantastic. I'm at one with the cosmos, peaceful, centered. Able to control my mind, my body, and my powerful hover-skirt retro-rocket anti-gravity boosters, with just a thought! (calls like "Geronimo") GERANIUMS! [Tom floats down out of the shot. Hold on the blank space for a second. Then, fading in, we hear Crow screaming at the top of his lungs. He plummets head-first through the screen. We hear a tremendous crash.] [FADE TO: , the barren planet from Episode EM101 ("Windmills of the Gods"- download it today, from Web Site #9!). Crow's legs are sticking straight up out of his compacted body, which crashed into a coffee-table sized rock. Mike and Tom enter, in the middle of a conversation.] MIKE: Aw, man that was great. Did you- TOM: -feel at one with the universe in all its expanding glory? Mais oui, Miguel! Mais oui! Ha ha! [Mike notices the odd gold structure encased in the rock while Tom is talking. He taps Tom on the shoulder and points to Crow.] TOM: Huh. MIKE: I guess he didn't- TOM: Didn't really grasp the oneness concept, there. Well, ce la vie. MIKE: Yeah, we'll extrude him later. So we gotta find Brain Guy's antibody, I guess? Gosh, I don't even know where to start. TOM: Uh, we could ask somebody. MIKE: D'oh, right, we're on the Living Planet, who are we gonna- [The ground shakes and we hear the sound of a giant footstep. Mike pauses, considers the sound for a second.] MIKE: -ask where to find- [Another ground-shaking footstep. Mike pauses again.] MIKE (sighs): This is gonna be one of those bad timing things, isn't it. [One final footstep crashes near them. Mike turns to face it.] MIKE: Well, hey! It's a thousand-foot-tall nude lady! How ya doin'? [The giantess stays off-screen, and speaks in a big, echoey, yet teenage girl voice (courtesy of Bridget Jones).] CYNDI: Hi? I'm Cyndi? "Y" before "I"? MIKE: Hi, we're lookin' for a white-skinned guy in a purple cape, carries a chaffing dish of sweetbreads? CYNDI: I'm, like, his antibody? And he's, like, my prisoner? TOM (muttering): Wow, a real mile-high Einstein, this one. MIKE: Hush. (to giantess) Can we see him? CYNDI: Yes? Because if you try to, like, run away with him? I can always, like, kill you? TOM (nervously laughing, to Mike): You know- that "oneness" thing, suddenly seems kinda lacking an escape plan of any kind. [Observer's sound effects, Brain Guy pops into the scene. He seems stupidly blissful.] OBSERVER: Howdy Mick. MIKE: Mike. OBSERVER: Howdy Tim. TOM: Tom! OBSERVER (motions to giantess): This is Cindy. CYNDI: Cyndi! OBSERVER: We're engaged. MIKE: What?! OBSERVER: Well, going steady, technically. (whispers, winks) But I think we both know where it's leading. (nudges Mike) TOM: Oh wake up, man! She's so... HUGE! OBSERVER: Oh, HUGE! That's a good one! [Observer does his thing. A few pages of manuscript pop into his hand. He shows them to Mike.] OBSERVER: There, my love letter to Cyn. I was looking for just the right word to finish it off. I've gone back in time and posted it on every Internet server in the universe! MIKE (reads): "Teamwork", by Eddie Delaney, Jr. OBSERVER: My web name! Clever, huh? Cyn's is "BIGGRRL". CYNDI: You're, like, a creepy dweeb loser? TOM (reading): You know, as awful as this story is, I feel strangely calm about it. Almost as if there were no way in hell I'd ever be forced to sit through it. Weird. OBSERVER: Oh, Mike, could you tell Pearl I can't watch WWF Raw with her this week? Cyndi thinks I'm above that sort of thing! MIKE: OK, here's the thing. Pearl's antibody is actually my antibody, or rather my evil twin, or maybe my counterpart from a parallel universe, I don't know, but he's gonna carve her into chunky chicken salad unless we get you and Bobo back and right the wrongs the lefts have righted! OBSERVER (sighs, turns to Cyn): Darling, perhaps Lynyrd B.F. Skinner said it best. "If I stay here with you, girl/ things just couldn't be the same/ Kids eat free at the Sizzler/ now I's gots ta go save Pearl." I hope, one day, you'll understand. CYNDI: I'm going to, like, kill you now? So, like, stand still or something? [CUT TO: Overhead shot, as if from Cyndi's foot. Stomp right down on top of Mike and Tom screaming and hugging each other, Crow's legs sticking up, and Observer, looking straight up at the oncoming blow.] --- End Part 2 --- [Logo, Commercial - The red and yellow M&M have creative differences.] When in the course of e-mail events... pinkboybuffet@hotmail.com Next --- Home MSTing: "Name of the Game" --- Part 3 of 8 --- [OPEN ON: Theater. Pearl and the Gang enter.] PEARL: I did a great job with that skit. I was funny. MAGIC VOICE (resentful): You agreed we'd never speak of it again. PEARL: Promises are for mortals, dear. > -------- > NAME OF THE GAME > by Kitt Montague > -------- PEARL: Seven card stud. Dollar ante. One-eyed jacks are wild. GYPSY: Oo, can you have wild cards in canasta? MAGIC VOICE: Oh, please. > >One GYPSY (sings shrilly): Singular sensation! PEARL: Oy! Please! Phyllis! Not so early. GYPSY: Sorry. >Logan MAGIC VOICE: Chuck Berry's disappointing son. > >"And what does she get from your office, Stone, if she hypothetically > knows what's been going on?" PEARL: A stern letter from the Marvin Gaye estate. > >Ben Stone stared back at the scrubby little lawyer MAGIC VOICE (announcer): Nothing beats the subpoena power of scrubby lawyers in Dow Bathroom Cleaner! >in front of him and leaned forward, hands clasped on his desk. He'd >seen lots of crappy lawyers in his time, and this one was up there with >the grungiest, GYPSY (serious announcer): Kurt Cobain, Attorney-At-Law. PEARL (same): When the light's out, and it's dangerous, here we are now, so detain us. >but the client >sitting quietly next to him, she was important. "That will depend, of >course, on what your client can give us," GYPSY: Heartache. Nothing but heartache. >he told the lawyer, then >addressed her. "You realize, Ms. Page, that if you don't tell us what >you know you'll be facing multiple charges of accessory to murder." PEARL (Stone): Unless we get bored or something. You wanna wrestle? > >"You can't prove what she did or did not know," the lawyer snapped. > >"Doesn't matter, sir," Stone told him matter-of-factly in his best > clipped Executive Assistant District Attorney voice. GYPSY: I didn't know he had a selection of clipped Executive Assistant District Attorney voices to choose from! MAGIC VOICE: Oh, Ben Stone made his name as the Man of a Thousand Clipped Executive District Attorney Voices. Whenever Hannah Barberra or Walter Lantz needed a clipped Executive District Attorney voice for their cartoons, they'd say, "Get Ben Stone on the phone! Now, dammit!" >"Did or didn't know, she >hindered a police investigation. And, I suspect at least one time >she knew exactly what she was doing." PEARL: Well it wasn't when she suggested lunch at The Olive Garden, I'll tell you that. > >"Circumstantial," muttered the lawyer, though with less bite. MAGIC VOICE: Yeah, their pasta always has no bite. It's overcooked. Italy should really sue them or something. > >"Ms. Page?" Stone leaned forward again. "Do you have something to tell >us?" GYPSY (Ms. Page): Look, all I said was I had a coupon. > >Page glanced quickly at her lawyer, who nodded just enough to disturb >the late-afternoon dust motes streaming in from the window, [All snigger.] PEARL (as dust mote): Hey! Ya mind? Some of us are undergoing Brownian motion here! > and then she swallowed. PEARL (dust mote): Ugh! Stop it, ya weiner! She is SO disturbing! MAGIC VOICE (dust mote): I'm gonna settle on her nose hair and give her a sneezing fit! >"I -- I -- know this makes me an idiot," she started, "but I >really had no idea anything was wrong." > MAGIC VOICE (Ms. Page): I thought interns always brought the President pizza in their lingerie. >"The police asked you in for questioning three times and you never > caught on to something being wrong?" GYPSY (Ms. Page): Yes. No! Were you talking to me or the dust motes? > >She started, and even from behind his desk, Stone could see her eyes >fill, but not to the point of actual spillover. PEARL: Captain Hazelwood! >She was frustrated, and >frightened, and he knew he wasn't going to get anything by playing the >heavy any more. MAGIC VOICE: He lost over 40 pounds on the Slim-fast diet! >Standing up and walking around his desk, past the other >assistant D.A. present, Claire Kincaid, MAGIC VOICE (excited): It's Claire! Claire's alive in this one! PEARL (waving): Yoo-hoo! Claire! Over here! GYPSY (as crazed fan): WE LOVE YOU CLAIRE!!! >Stone pulled up a seat at the table >next to the young woman -- Amelia, was that it? - MAGIC VOICE: No detail of the case gets past the iron mind of Ben-- Stone, was that it? >and tried to relax the muscles in his face. PEARL: Oh, here, let me help. [Pearl stands up and cocks her fist back.] GYPSY: Pearl! No violence in the theater! Now sit down, and stop slouching! PEARL: No fair! You don't tell Madge to stop slouching! GYPSY AND MAGIC VOICE: SHE DOESN'T (I DON'T) HAVE A BODY! PEARL: Stop yelling at me! GYPSY: You don't listen! MAGIC VOICE: Corporalist! >Can't let her know what's riding here, he thought, >because I'm not even sure what's riding here. MAGIC VOICE (Stone): No aspect of the prosecution gets by the legal acumen of-- what was my name again? > >"No," she said finally. "I didn't. Where should I start?" > >Ben nodded, and let out a sigh. They had her; she wanted to tell, > though why he wasn't sure. Whys could come later. GYPSY: After the double-u's and exes, I'd wager. >"Start wherever you think >everything starts for you. We can work back if we need to later." MAGIC VOICE (Ms. Page): OK. Well, my first memory is of a floating place, awash with blue light and playful stars. Their passions roiling from cheap weed and strawberry margaritas, my parents stepped achingly towards one another and slowly removed their... PEARL (Stone): NO! Not THAT far back! > > -------- > ALL (make the patented "Law and Order" scene change music): DUN-DUN! PEARL: Oh, wait. We can't. There hasn't been a scene change. MAGIC VOICE: Well why the divider then? GYPSY: Umm... maybe it's a refugee bonus puzzle from "Wheel of Fortune". >"First," she told him, a stenographer typing the transcript in the >background, "I'm not Amelia, and I'm not a Page. My name, for the past >twenty-four years, has been Alexa Radin." ALL: DUN-DUN... huh? >When no one flinched, she went on. PEARL (Alexa): I'm also not a real blonde. And I'm not my brother's keeper. And this isn't my nose, it's a false one. GYPSY (Sir Bedevere): Well? MAGIC VOICE (Eric Idle): Well we did do the nose. And the hat. > >She'd known she was adopted for as long as she could remember anything. >Growing up in a small suburban town in upstate New York, her parents >had never hidden that from her. MAGIC VOICE (twelve-year-old girl): Mom, I- PEARL (mother): You're not my real daughter! MAGIC VOICE: But my report card- PEARL: You're adopted! MAGIC VOICE: If you could just sign by the- PEARL: Shut up! Go find a real mother! My game shows are on! >She'd been adopted from a private agency at >three days, taken home, raised as one of their own. GYPSY: Raised as the agency's own? She's "The Pretender" now? MAGIC VOICE (sings): You see a, pronoun was made to take the place of a noun... > When she went to >college, however, she read some articles in her science classes on >genetics study, and decided that while tracking down her birth parents >wasn't important to her, she did want medical records -- breast cancer, >heart disease. PEARL: So she smoked six packs an hour and went on phen-phen, and soon she had all the medical records a girl could want! GYPSY: You really crave attention, don't you Pearl? PEARL: Well, sure. Who doesn't? >Problem was, the courts of the jurisdiction in which she was >adopted didn't have any kind of medical information, just sent her some >cut and paste Xerox detailing small bits and pieces about the mother >and the circumstances surrounding the adoption. MAGIC VOICE: Snippets like, "webbed toes", "the Devil's pollywog", "big future as a carnie"... >Things Alexa hadn't wanted to know, >but once they were in her hands, read anyway. GYPSY: Yeah, like you just browse the "Enquirer" on the check-out line. PEARL: Wow, Crispin Glover has a secret prehensile tail! >And one bit of information >stuck out like no other -- that she was one of a set of twins. ALL (sing): They're COU-sins! They walk alike, they talk alike- > > -------- > ALL: DUN-DUN! PEARL: Whoops! Sorry. Just the divider again. MAGIC VOICE: Not one to nitpick, but shouldn't we have seen, oh, a dead body by this point? GYPSY: Well, maybe the author has a vision, or something. >At this, Ben Stone straightened in his seat and shot a glance at >Claire, who abruptly stood and left the room. ALL: NOOOO! GYPSY: Come back Claire! He didn't mean it! MAGIC VOICE: D'oh, now look what you did, Stoneface! >"A twin?" he asked, incredulous. "So >you're saying you had a twin and never knew it?" PEARL (Alexa): No, the narrator said it. I just live here. > >Alexa shook her head. "You sense things, you think you're only half of > a whole, but what kid doesn't? MAGIC VOICE (Alexa): You dream of a sinister doppelganger killing in your stead, but who doesn't? >Once I knew, that changed everything. Because >-- knowing that not only is someone out there who moves the way you do, >or waves her arms like you do, GYPSY (sings): HANDS UP! Baby, HANDS UP! Gimme- PEARL (clamping Gypsy's mouth): OK. The next time? You die. Got me? GYPSY (apologetic): Mmph. >or maybe even has the same interests as you, MAGIC VOICE (Alexa): Wow! I think this is a crappy fanfic too! >but who actually looks just like you, that just changes everything." GYPSY: It turns peas, into beans! > >"You assumed she was identical." PEARL (as Alexa): To herself? Yes. > >Alexa said she knew instinctively that the twin was a girl, and >identical. MAGIC VOICE: If it were a BOY, and identical, we'd be knee-deep in lemon territory. PEARL: Don't assume we're not, yet. >She decided to do a full out search, GYPSY: Lycos- go get it! PEARL: Hey, I typed "twins"! What's all this Minnesota baseball crap? >which led her to find some very >startling facts about her adoption -- after all, what mother would give > up half a set of twins? GYPSY: Didn't Schwarzenegger already try this plot? > >It turned out her mother never knew both babies lived. The birth had > been excruciating PEARL: (as husband, laconically): Push. Um, push again. Look, honey, we're on our twentieth hour here, I'm grabbin' a brew. >and she had passed out before both babies emerged, and was >later told that one had died. It had been close -- Alexa, the second to >be born, was a blue baby, nearly strangled in the womb by the >umbilical cord. MAGIC VOICE: Wrapped around her neck by, could it be, her EVIL TWIN?! GYPSY: Isn't any plot with an evil twin inherently unwatchable? [Pearl looks at Gypsy.] GYPSY: I mean, wow! Another engrossing evil twin story! Oh boy! >When it appeared the second baby would survive, however, she was >smuggled out of the hospital and sold to a private adoption agency. "I >don't know who was involved with what," said Alexa, seemingly >unaffected by the circumstances she was describing. PEARL: (Alexa): My body was sold for profit, and that was fine. It wouldn't be the last- GYPSY: Pearl Forrester, don't you DARE! >"The doctor who delivered me died five >years ago, and the agency has long been out of business. No one who was >at fault is still around to blame. I've had a lot of time to think >this through, work it out. And I don't blame anyone." GYPSY (Alexa): Now, the people I don't blame, in alphabetical order. [All groan.] > >Then, four months ago, her search narrowed to the Pages', a wealthy >Gramercy Park socialite family of old money, a world far removed from > the lower class suburban homes she'd lived in with her adopted family. GYPSY (Alexa): Henry Aaron, although his money and fame could have prevented this from happening, I don't blame him. Ansel Adams... > Alexa's sleuthing brought her to Amelia Page's address in Gramercy > Park.Amelia, her twin, worked in some form of public relations, > and Alexa tried to set up a meeting, hedging on the exact purpose. GYPSY (Alexa): Louis Brahms, though his lullaby if prettier could have swayed my mother into keeping me, I don't blame him. Bullwinkle Moose- PEARL and MAGIC VOICE (dust motes): OH, SHE IS SO BLOODY DISTURBING!!! GYPSY (Alexa): Woo. Touchy dust motes. >After a week, Amelia >found room for her and agreed to meet over lunch. "She asked me what I >looked like so she'd know who to look for," Alexa recalled, and smiled >a little. "I told her she'd recognize me, without a doubt." PEARL (Alexa): I'd be the one pumping my fists in the air, going, "Ka-ching! Ka-ching!" > >The meeting was a shock for both, seeing each other in a Mark Twain > context of princess and near-pauper. MAGIC VOICE: You know, if Fran Drescher met Blues Travellers- GYPSY: They'd be the Princess and the Popper? MAGIC VOICE: Basically, yeah. >Alexa, currently working as a musician in a band around Manhattan, had >dressed up but could hardly approach the designer flair of Amelia. >Amelia, with her sharp edges and defined nails, PEARL: Boy, you must be really ripped to see definition in your nails. >styled hair and pointed heels could hardly be farther away than Alexa > in her leather jacket, skirt, and sweater. But they recognized one > another instantly -- same five-foot eight, same shade of blonde hair, GYPSY: Same addiction to Wizard of Oz commemorative plates. >though Alexa's was much longer and looser, same slope of the nose and >wide pale blue eyes. MAGIC VOICE: They even had the same boob job! >Far flung family may come to claim wealthy so-called relatives' >money, but it is hard to deny your own face in someone else's. GYPSY: You could cut off your nose- that works sometimes. >Even still, >Alexa had brought along documentation, in case proving was necessary. PEARL (Alexa): See? My Discover card. You CAN'T make that up! >Besides, she told Stone, she didn't care for the money, she merely >wanted to make the connection. MAGIC VOICE: Oh, she plays Twixt. GYPSY: Or she's James Earl Jones doing a Bell Atlantic commercial. > >Amelia was everything Alexa was not -- sophisticated, worldly-wise, a >college graduate from Wellesley, vocal, brilliantly cynical. Alexa saw >her as a Dorothy Parker figure, and instantly bonded. MAGIC VOICE: Well the tube did say, "Do not let plot make contact with skin". >She was lucky: Amelia >took to her naivete and rough edges and finally, at the end of their >meal, declared, "Well, you simply have to move in right with me! [ALL snicker.] >We've got far too much room for any one person, GYPSY (Alexa): But doesn't "we" imply a family? PEARL (Amelia): Oh, I'll disown them! Never to worry! Out on the street they go, lollygaggers! >and I couldn't imagine you continuing to >live down in the Village. Not one more second!" MAGIC VOICE (Amelia): Let's get you right out of that cradle of art and literature and into a nice Nieman Markus! > >Alexa felt adopted for the second time in her life, and moved her few >bags of items and one guitar into Amelia's spacious two-floor Gramercy >Park apartment within a few days. GYPSY (Alexa): Amelia, I- PEARL (Amelia): You're not my real daughter! GYPSY (Alexa): Huh? But I'm not- PEARL (Amelia): You were adopted! GYPSY (Alexa): But I'm the one who- PEARL (Amelia): Shut up! America's Cup sailing is on! >It was perfect. The next step, was naturally >to meet her birth parents, and share the good news. MAGIC VOICE: Yeah, this is great, because wealthy families love it when dubious heirs lay claim to their inheritance. > >At the first mention of the idea, Amelia grew cold. "No, Alexa, > certainly not. Not yet, anyway." > >"Why not?" > >"Well," said Amelia, and spent the next fifteen minutes delineating why. PEARL (Amelia): Letting common sense unravel a plot this early.... it simply isn't done! >Didn't Alexa want to seem to fit in right away? As though she had never >been away from the Pages'? Well, to do that, didn't she have to learn > what to say and how to say it? GYPSY (Amelia): Genetic identification simply cannot replace good breeding! >"Let me be your Pygmalion!" cried Amelia. PEARL: That should've been the sequel to "Babe". >"When we go to Mummy and Daddy, they won't be able to tell us apart!" > >"Is that how she said it, Ms. Page?" Ben asked. "That they wouldn't be > able to tell you apart?" MAGIC VOICE (Alexa): That, or, "Don't touch my sweater, you'll pit it." > >Alexa nodded. "The way she said it, it was like she was...having a >revelation. GYPSY: The Virgin Mary appears in her tira misu! >It made me remember. And I knew she had some truth to it, I was >a wreck, I didn't fit in her crowd, I could tell that right off. She > really did need to show me the ropes. So I let her." PEARL (Amelia): Very well. Here's one rope. And by the ottoman there? That's the other one. Yes, I know you expected more. They all do. >Amelia had a day job, doing promotions for various firms, and it kept > her out at odd hours, meeting clients and schmoozing, MAGIC VOICE: I've never heard it called that before. >attending parties, so she wasn't home very often, which left Alexa lots >of time to roam the apartment PEARL: (sings as Alexa): ROAM in the place where you live! Now face north- (stops) no, that's not right. Let's see... (sings) STAND, if you want to! Stand, around the world- no! Darn! >and try on her clothes, play with expensive makeup, GYPSY (Alexa): Mm, rosemary facial rub with roast beef on rye! >get more accustomed to >the family she was preparing herself to join. MAGIC VOICE: Wow, being part of a family is a lot like being an agoraphobic shut-in. > She made herself known to >Amelia's three dogs, too, Buster, Swoozie, and Clark, PEARL: Two guesses what the author named her cats. >all various breeds Amelia never could recall, all, as Amelia put it, >"over pedigreed and under friendly." When Amelia was home she >scrutinized her behavior, began to imitate a more restrained, refined >look. "I knew I was doing okay," said Alexa, "when I smiled a lot less. >Amelia doesn't smile much." GYPSY (Amelia): Laughter is for the little people, dear. >A few weeks after she started staying with Amelia, Alexa found herself >seeing her sister less and less frequently. MAGIC VOICE: So, she went from hardly seeing her at all... to, what? A Vietnam POW? >At first, Amelia had been >overwhelmed, then enthused, at her sudden doubling, GYPSY: Oo, bad choice of words. PEARL: They switched from Jenna Elfman to Kathy Bates midway through casting. >and Alexa believed she >had opened her heart to her sister and been accepted from the >beginning...rough edges and all. MAGIC VOICE (Alexa): That's so refreshing, after my last twelve friends tried to use me as scapegoats for their elaborate murder schemes! >It was something Alexa tried to believe, >but was never fully convinced of. GYPSY: And you expect US to buy it? >Amelia had a sheen to her, like a glass that could slide down almost >imperceptibly, until she had locked a person out, and Alexa felt from >the beginning she was on the other side of that pane. PEARL: OK, Alexa, your evil twin is locked in the soundproof booth. For 5 points, what's the first thing Amelia does after pulling the knife from her victim? >She might never have known it existed but for the one or two times >Amelia let her guard down and they were able to laugh out loud >together. It turned out Amelia was a big fan of ER, MAGIC VOICE: Setting her apart from the twenty million bored and uninterested viewers of the show. PEARL: Sarcasm? MAGIC VOICE: I thought so at the time. >and they took every Thursday night >off to watch it. Amelia would make faces at the women actors, GYPSY: Get some real hair, Margulies! >and sit riveted whenever George Clooney took the screen, MAGIC VOICE: Oooo! He'd be so dreamy if he'd just take that handful of Crisco out of his mouth! PEARL: Hey! Hands off Clooney! MAGIC VOICE: Yeah, that's what HE said. PEARL (fight stance): Oh, you want some of this? Bring it on, Slimer! GYPSY: She doesn't have a body, Pearl. Calm down. >and they would both turn >away when the operating room scenes grew too harrowing. "It's only corn >syrup," Alexa would point out, GYPSY (Alexa): Look, see? They're adding liquid smoke and bottling it as Hunt's Barbecue Sauce! >but Amelia didn't care, shadowing her eyes >at the sight of even fake blood. PEARL: Hoo! I hope the Evil Twins Union doesn't hear about this. >They did have fun, occasionally, but >gradually Alexa became aware of Amelia's formal posturing, her way of > being secretive, the locked cabinets around the apartment. MAGIC VOICE (Alexa): Damn! I'm going to have to use the crowbar on this one. Why doesn't she TRUST me?! > >She didn't fully grasp that any overt deception might be going on until >one night while cutting a loaf of French bread Amelia cut herself and >yelped.Alexa hurried into the kitchen to see if everything was all >right and found her sister staring at her hand, sliced across the ring >finger, dripping on to the white loaf. ALL: EWWWWW! GYPSY: That is NOT how you make bruschette! >Amelia had been staring as if transfixed, and didn't run >it under water until Alexa spoke up. PEARL (Amelia): No, that's for burns, sweetie. MAGIC VOICE (Alexa): Oh. OK, go put some butter on it. PEARL (Amelia): No, that's for burns! And you shouldn't do that for burns anyway. MAGIC VOICE (Alexa): But it's NOT a burn. PEARL (Amelia): So? MAGIC VOICE (Alexa): So, put some butter on it while I get a bandage for the bread! >"It was," Alexa said to Stone, "the little lies like that... GYPSY: Lies like not washing a cut fast enough? >things you really wouldn't face someone with and which felt almost too >small to even count as lies, but were untrue all the same. MAGIC VOICE: Kitchen accidents as acts of betrayal! PEARL: I'm leaving you, Albert. You can just KEEP your head in the microwave for all I care! >Like she would say she didn't eat meat, she was some long time >vegetarian. But one night I made hamburgers and she leaped right in >with me. I began to wonder if it was compulsive with her." PEARL: Oh, no. The author's a born-again vegan. GYPSY: Of course you can have a burger, you NAZI PSYCHO MURDER WHORE! >And then, Amelia wasn't around very much any more. She claimed she was >getting very involved with one of her assistants in the office, and was >out late nights even when there were no parties, or wingdings to >attend to, GYPSY: Oh, she's a Microsoft font designer. > and Alexa was left alone most of the time. And then even Thursday > nights weren't theirs any more. They didn't go out together. MAGIC VOICE: They NEVER went out together! She just SAID that! PEARL: Man, Amelia should dump this crybaby. GYPSY: I know. Alexa is so long-lost-twin-sister-whipped. > Amelia came home late most nights, and on the odd evening when she was > in, she claimed being tired, MAGIC VOICE (Alexa): You're seeing another sibling, aren't you?! >or if she had any energy, worked at improving Alexa's diction and >poise. "She wanted us to be real twins," Alexa told Ben. "Real two of a >kind." > >"But you never went out as a pair?" GYPSY (as Alexa): Ew, grody! No, you dirty old man! >Alexa shook her head. "She said she knew too many people and if they >saw us together it would get back to mom and dad -- sorry, mummy and >daddy-- MAGIC VOICE (as preppy mother): That's all right, sweet'ums. Mummy luv her pookybear. > and we didn't want to be premature. That was her word, premature. I > didn't really resent it -- I guess I put all my faith in her. She was > like another me, my mirror telling me what I should and shouldn't do. PEARL: Sort of a Jiminy Cricket/David Berkowitz kind of a deal. >I still haven't gotten used to it." > >"So you were being trained," Ben nudged. MAGIC VOICE: Bark like a dog. GYPSY (high-pitched): Arf! MAGIC VOICE: A BIG dog. >"Did anything significant happen during that time?" > >Alexa averted her eyes. PEARL (Indiana Jones): Don't look into the plot, Mirriam! >Until this point, she had been fairly straightforward, telling these >things as if she were relating a story to a friend. MAGIC VOICE: The sort of friend you want to bore into leaving as soon as possible. >And here, she hesitated. Staring out Ben's large window into the >early twilight, PEARL (Stone): Hey! (snaps fingers) I'm over here, lady! Hello?! >she said, "Then, one morning, the police came." > >"You mean Detectives Logan and Briscoe, Ms. Page," Ben clarified. > >She nodded. Here was where things got sticky. MAGIC VOICE: I'd always heard Logan was into that sort of- GYPSY: NO! [Logo, commercials - This is CBS. More's the pity.] --- End Part 3 --- Been spendin' most our lives, livin' in an e-mail paradise. pinkboybuffet@hotmail.com Next --- Home MSTing: "Name of the Game" --- Part 4 of 8 --- [OPEN ON: Theater. Pearl, Gypsy and Magic Voice continue riffing.] > > -------- > >Alexa had been getting bolder about her new strata in life, MAGIC VOICE: As the most glamorous debutante in all of New York! Amongst those that never left the house on advice of their scheming duplicates. >and had taken >to dressing in Amelia's lesser designerwear PEARL (fashion show emcee): Alexa is wrapped head-to-toe in a stunning reproduction of style from the Kathie Lee Gifford collection of Kuala Lampur. >and going for short walks >around the immediate area. GYPSY: Well, it's New York. Every area is pretty immediate. >Without Amelia around, she felt as if she had to >take charge of things. PEARL (Alexa): Stouffer's Lean Cuisine, I told you hours ago to get in that microwave and cook! >If she ran into a neighbor, Alexa decided early on >that she would simply claim she was Amelia, [ALL chuckle.] GYPSY: So the evil twin's master plan revolves around Alexa laying an intricate web of lies and deceit for no discernable reason. PEARL: Hey, if it ain't broke... >home for a day because she felt >under the weather. GYPSY (Alexa): Tidings! My identity is Amelia Page, home for the day. MAGIC VOICE (neighbor): Er... great. I just need to bring my garbage to the chute... GYPSY (Alexa): Pleasantries? Why thank you! And I'm Amelia Page! MAGIC VOICE (neighbor): Please, I have mace! > Or some such thing. GYPSY: Huh? Did you say that? PEARL: No, that's the text, actually. GYPSY: Get out. PEARL: No, really. >Mostly, she dressed to take the dogs >on their morning constitutional around and in the Park, MAGIC VOICE (sings as dog): We the canines, in order to tinkle on fire hydrants... > to pick up a few >items at the shop down the street, or to get a paper. GYPSY: "GIULIANI PARTS RED SEA". Boy, I knew the Post was partisan, but- >On the glorious blue >early September day in question, she was walking all three dogs and reading >the paper at the same time, PEARL: Let's see Gerald Ford do that! >her hair done up in a chiffon just as Amelia >would have, eyes hidden behind Amelia's four hundred dollar spare Armani >sunglasses, in a two-piece skirt outfit more suited to the office than dog >walking, and four inch high heels, MAGIC VOICE: Sidney "Piddle" Barrows! Heh heh! GYPSY: Oo. >the one article of dress she had yet to >master. Alexa hated heels -- she'd waited too long in life to try to >accustom herself to them, and habitually found her ankle twisting around, GYPSY: Men would never put up with this sort of thing. PEARL: Oh yeah? Well when I rule the world, you'll never have to wear heels again! How about that? GYPSY: I don't have any feet. MAGIC VOICE: Nope. Me neither. PEARL: What the? I've seen Gypsy's closet, it's full of shoes! MAGIC VOICE: She just likes the IDEA of having shoes. It's in her girly-girl programming. PEARL (after pausing): You're a sick litter of puppies up here, you know that? >so she had to step carefully, and slowly. This day she had walked the dogs MAGIC VOICE: Causing the neighborhood to step carefully, and slowly. GYPSY: Oo, no scooper. I guess she really IS impersonating her evil twin. >and was heading home when two men, one in his fifties or sixties, one >nearing the far edge of his thirties, approached her. > >The older one asked, "Ms. Amelia Page?" > >Here we go, thought Alexa, and slid into the part of her sister. ALL: WHAT?!? >"Yes, I >am. What can I do for you?" PEARL (man): Oh, slip your head in a noose, and get on this stepladder. We wanna see how it looks! > >The elder slid a glance to the man next to him and withdrew a badge from >his pocket, introducing himself as Detective Briscoe, and his partner as >Detective Logan. "We'd like to ask you a few questions, if you don't mind." MAGIC VOICE (Alexa): Well was that one of them? PEARL (Briscoe, simmering): No, it wasn't one of them. MAGIC VOICE (Alexa): Then I don't have to answer it. Ta! PEARL (Briscoe): Get back here, you! > >Alexa didn't know what to think, but knowing Amelia it was probably >something like unpaid parking tickets, so she didn't see any harm in >continuing the charade. [All snicker.] GYPSY (shaking her head): This is sad. MAGIC VOICE: Yeah, no harm in yanking New York City cops around by their ears. Just dodge the first 41 bullets, they usually calm down after that. >"What about?" > >"Do you know someone by the name of Frederick Martinio?" Detective Logan >asked. > >She thought, and shook her head. "No, I don't think so. The last name >sounds familiar, PEARL: It sounds like the winning entry to the "Combine Two Common Names To Create An Implausible One" contest. >but I don't know the man. MAGIC VOICE: Well find out! On A&E's "Biography"! Tonight at eight, quarter to nine, half past twelve, and pretty much any other time you tune in this armpit of a cable network. > Why?" > >Logan and Briscoe looked at each other. "He lives right in this >neighborhood. You sure you've never seen him around? GYPSY (Alexa): You know, real cops would have a picture of him to look at. PEARL (Logan, defensive): Shut up! We're getting to that. >You know, the grocery, >the laundromat?" Logan asked. > >She turned Amelia-haughty, the thought of her sister doing laundry making >her smile. "Detective Logan, I hardly concern myself with laundry. PEARL (Logan): Yes, I smell. Duh, see! I see! >Most of >my clothes are dry-clean." > >Logan sniffed derisively MAGIC VOICE: Yeah, good call not doing laundry. The dirt's probably holding the fabric together at this point. Phew! >and rolled his eyes skyward, letting Briscoe pick >things up. > >"I take it that's a no. You've never seen this person." Briscoe held up a >black and white photo and let Alexa peer into it a moment. GYPSY: Profiler! NBC Saturday! >"Take a good >look." MAGIC VOICE (Alexa): So this is Martinio? PEARL (Briscoe): We didn't say it was Martinio. MAGIC VOICE (Alexa): Well why don't you have a photo of Martinio? PEARL (Logan): Shut up! > >She shook her head. > >Said Logan, "Can you tell us where you were last night around 11:30?" > >Alexa frowned. Normally she would have said "dancing at the Limelight," >because Wednesday nights were Limelight nights for her, each night her band >wasn't playing she hit a different place, MAGIC VOICE: She has a band? I do NOT believe this little priss got a band! GYPSY: Settle down. They probably just cover old Air Supply tunes. >but she knew Amelia hadn't been >there. And at this moment, she was being Amelia. PEARL: Because... well it was just the thing to do, or something. >"I went to a party on the >Upper East Side," she said slowly, it beginning to dawn on her that this >wasn't about parking tickets. GYPSY (as Alexa, nervously to self): Think rich, think rich... (aloud) Ahem! Officer, whatever law I broke doesn't apply to me anyway! > >Briscoe nodded, "And you didn't see this man at the party? You didn't see >anyone with this man?" > >Alexa folded the newspaper under one arm and leaned back on her hip. MAGIC VOICE: That's it... feel the stretch into the obliques. >"Just >what is this about, anyway?" PEARL (cop): A tired plot twist, ma'am. You'll have to come with us. > >They didn't answer a moment, and then Logan said, "Do you mind coming with >us to talk a little more?" MAGIC VOICE (Alexa): Couldn't we have sex first- oh no, I've got it backwards! > >"Certainly," she said, clipped and efficient like Amelia. GYPSY (Logan): Um, was that certainly you'll talk, or certainly you mind? >"My apartment is >just a few blocks down the street." > >Logan, who impressed Alexa first as wearing a bad suit with a loud tie - PEARL: Logan didn't never wear no loud ties! GYPSY: Well, maybe he just solved a big case at a country club, and this was the golf pro's way of thanking him. >noticing these small things was how she realized she was fully in character MAGIC VOICE: Yeah, 'cuz in real life, Alexa had cataracts. GYPSY: So she wouldn't be able to see anything- MAGIC VOICE: -unless she was in character, is what I'm saying, yes. >-- took a step toward her and said, "Actually, I was thinking that the 27th >precinct is right around the corner. We could talk there." > >She didn't like him at all, this Detective Logan. PEARL (Shakespearian): This earth, this England! >Briscoe at least had a >fatherly attitude -- grandfatherly almost, under a carefully brushed, >graying at the temples head of hair his wrinkled face had experience in it >-- but Logan had too much hair on his head, [ALL snicker.] MAGIC VOICE: You! With that hair on your head! HAIRHEAD! >smoky hazel eyes and a hawklike >nose that made him appear tough, and intimidating. Alexa refused to be >bullied, and standing her ground, pushed back. "If you haven't noticed, >Detective Logan, I have three dogs to take care of. PEARL: Four if you count the story. GYPSY: Oo! >Do you need them for >questioning, too?" > MAGIC VOICE (dog): Not without a warrant, immunity, and a bag of Beggin' Strips, pal. >Her snottiness got to him and he bit back, "Then how about we take the dogs >with us, lady?" PEARL (dog): Ay, you can't pin that slipper job on me, copper! I was barking at invisible burglars all night! > >"Mike --" his partner started but Logan waved his hand. GYPSY: Knave! Begone! > >"She wants the dogs, we take the dogs," he told Briscoe. GYPSY (Alexa): Wait, I want a shower. MAGIC VOICE: She wants a shower, we take a shower. GYPSY: Dictation? MAGIC VOICE: She wants dictation, we take dictation. GYPSY: Cool! How about leave of your senses? MAGIC VOICE: She wants leave of our senses, we take leave of our- hey! >"Here, I'll take >the mutts to the car for you." > >And as if the dogs were listening to the whole exchange, as soon as Alexa >handed the leashes over, all three dogs took off at a full bolt, ALL (call): Serpentine! Serpentine! >barreling >down the midway of Gramercy Park. [ALL laugh.] MAGIC VOICE (preppy): Oh I say! Meaningless, juvenile slapstick! How crackingly clever! >Alexa gasped and threw her hands to her >face, nearly falling over from the idiotic high heels. Now she knew why she >hated heels, PEARL: They ruin her grip, apparently. >and hated feeling this helpless. "The dogs! My dogs!" GYPSY: The tintinnabulation of the dogs! >she >cried out lamely, sounding exactly like Amelia, and loathing it. MAGIC VOICE (Alexa): I've become the thing I hate the most! Whatever that is. > >Logan gave her a disgusted look and took off after the animals, Briscoe >following after one animal branched off from the other two. GYPSY: You know, some dogs have been known to come when you call them. PEARL: Nah, she can't. Wouldn't be in character. >And suddenly, >both policemen were gone, their long overcoats flying like capes behind >them. Alexa giggled, thinking, There they go to save the day. GYPSY: Andy Kaufman! MAGIC VOICE: Ralph Bakshi! PEARL: Ben Franklin! [Gyps stares at Pearl.] PEARL: But he created Daylight Savings! GYPSY: Madge? MAGIC VOICE (derisively at Pearl): Newbie! GYPSY: Thank you. >But Alexa >felt instantly bad for thinking that way; PEARL (scolding): Oh, bad Alexa! No biscuit! >the condescension was obviously >Amelia's doing. GYPSY: Obviously. Alexa's dishonesty and condescension are all part of AMELIA'S master plan! PEARL: So what'd she blame before this? Sunspots? >Her adopted uncle had been a cop for fifteen years and she >knew the kind of money they didn't make and how tough their jobs could be. MAGIC VOICE: Yeah, it ain't easy gettin' a broom handle that far up a perp. GYPSY: Time out! [Madge protests, but we hear the electronic blip of her being shut off.] PEARL (amazed): You can do that?! GYPSY: I control the ship's higher functions. PEARL: Oo, could you make her sound like a howler monkey? GYPSY: Being in a position of authority isn't a game, Pearl. PEARL: Yeah, yeah, yeah, power responsibility comes with awesome. What about helium? Can you put her voice on helium? >So, repentant at her giddiness, Alexa decided to get to the precinct on her >own, where obviously someone was expecting her. PEARL: The poster child for "Good Women, Bad Choices", ladies and gentlemen! Give her a hand! >Eventually, all of this >would straighten out. Flagging a cab down, Alexa slid inside and asked for >the 27th precinct station. PEARL (cabbie): Dat's around da corner, lady! GYPSY (Alexa): Yes, I know, but- PEARL: Just walk! I mean, it's right dere! GYPSY: But I'm in character, you see... wait, you're not a limousine service! > > -------- > [We hear an electronic blip as Madge comes back on line.] MAGIC VOICE: Whoa, am I late for the domino rally? PEARL: Hey Madge! I talked to Gypsy, and if you're not nice she's gonna make you sound like a howler monkey! MAGIC VOICE: Don't even try it, newbie. >She was waiting there for them, amidst the subdued lunchtime lull of the >station, when the two detectives stomped in about a half hour later with >all three dogs in tow. Cries of "What'd you arrest em for, Mikey?" and "Dog >pound's uptown, Logan!" MAGIC VOICE: All the crackling wit of "Diresta", in a convenient, easy-to-delete format! >followed their noisy entrance into the main room. >Momentarily relieved that none of the dogs had been mashed under a truck, PEARL: Oh, they used a ricer, thank goodness! GYPSY: Yuk! >Alexa worked on slowing her heart down, GYPSY: Alexa Radin IS "Master Ninja"! MAGIC VOICE (as Timothy Van Patten): I thoughp mu were DEAD! You HAR stop beaping! PEARL: What they hey are you two talking about? GYPSY: Oh, you really don't wanna know. >rebuilt her composure and leaned >against what had been pointed out as their desks by their Captain, sipping >her thick coffee. MAGIC VOICE (sings): 'Cuz saying all those nouns over and over... will let us know WHAT THE HELL YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT! GYPSY: Let it go. It's not worth it. > >Across the room she watched as the bald Captain approached Logan and >proceeded to chew him out for bringing dogs in the office. PEARL (Alexa): Hey, we can't all be Jennifer Lopez, pal! >She saw him >point, and heard him say "put em in the holding cell," MAGIC VOICE: Yeah, the homicide suspects just LOVE little rat dogs yapping underfoot. >then watched Logan >thrust Swoozie, who he had been carrying, and the leashes attached to the >other dogs at the Captain. > >"You do it," he snapped. GYPSY: See, this is funny, because he knows disobeying orders and sassing back to the captain is wrong. >Alexa smiled across the room, watching everything >intently. MAGIC VOICE (Alexa): Oo... betcha he steps in poop next. > >"Watch it, detective. What the hell are you doing with them anyway?" the >Captain demanded. PEARL: They were hanging in a window in Chinatown. Real fresh! GYPSY: Bad, Pearl. > >"We were talking to this witness and they ran off. She ditched us when we >went after them." Logan put his hands on his hips and glared. > >"Oh, really." GYPSY: Wait- isn't Alexa at their desk? Can't he see her? Are they on a different floor or something? PEARL: Well, maybe Logan has ADD. MAGIC VOICE: Or Alexa's cataracts are virulent and contagious. > >"Yeah, really. So what're we supposed to be doin' with them anyhow?" > >"She ditched you." > >"Just wandered off." Logan waved his hand. PEARL (evenly, can't contain anger): Logan- is repeating- his restatements- of scenes WE'VE ALREADY SEEN!!! GYPSY: Shh! He has ADD! PEARL: So do I! Alexa Disfigurement Dreams! And I know how to cure it, too! >"Amelia Page. Wasn't answering >her doorbell, either." MAGIC VOICE: Well her doorbell called her best friend a slut! > >The conversation was growing more audible as Logan and his Captain, Briscoe >somewhere behind, approached their neighboring desks. "She didn't wander >far." > >"What?" GYPSY (as mother talking to child): Honey? Watch me speak. She, didn't, wander, far. Say it back to me. Come on, you can do it! > >The bald policeman pointed as they arrived at the desks. "Your hosts are >here," he told Alexa, and she let the smile grow a little bigger as the >detectives realized she was waiting for them. Their superior officer led >the dogs to a waiting assistant, who walked them to the back of the room. [ALL imitate growling rabid dogs.] GYPSY (as panicked officer): DAAAHHH! Get'em off me, get'em off me! > >Standing straighter, she put her coffee down on the desk. "Thank you, >Detective Mike, for retrieving my dogs for me." She turned to Briscoe. >"Will they be all right until we're done?" > >"I think so, Ms. Page." > >Logan rolled his eyes. "Let's get this over with." MAGIC VOICE: Ms. Montague should be required to print that sentence ON EVERY SINGLE PAGE! > >"Wait, Mike," Briscoe told him, pointing at a calendar on the desk. "We're >already late for that lunch thing with Stone and all them." PEARL (Briscoe): I'se talkin' in my accent, 'cuz we'se from New Yawk. > >That pissed Logan off but good. GYPSY (Logan): Oo! That frosts my cupcake! >"Great. We spend a half hour chasing these >mutts and now we can't even take the time to talk to --" > >Briscoe led him off to the side. Alexa wasn't entirely sure what they were >discussing, but it wasn't what they were about to have for lunch. PEARL: Real casual murder investigations they have there in Manhattan. MAGIC VOICE: Well, it's a theater community, you see. >After >some behind-the-hand discussion, they came over to her. MAGIC VOICE: Shouldn't someone be walking in with a lab report at this point? >"Ms. Page, would >you mind waiting for us for a few minutes?" Briscoe asked kindly. "We have >to make an appearance." MAGIC VOICE: Ballisitcs? DNA testing? Blood and hair samples? Fiber analysis? > >"And we'll come right back for you," said Logan, still sarcastic. > >She feigned impatience, when in fact she was fascinated to see what would >happen next. MAGIC VOICE: Forensics? Autopsy? Fingerprints? Gun registration? License plate number? PBA raffle winners? Anything? >Spending all her time indoors had made any new event worthy of >investigation. PEARL: Unlike the recent MARTINIO MURDER!!! Jeez! >"Well," she finally decided. "Only if you promise to bring >me a sandwich." > >Logan smiled strainedly. "I think we can manage that." GYPSY (Alexa): Good. Now remember, I'm allergic to wheat gluten, shellfish, and MSG, plus I'm lactose intolerant and I keep glatt kosher. > >Ben stopped her here, putting a hand on her forearm. MAGIC VOICE: Bad touch! >"Wait a minute. So >this lunch, they just left you sitting around while they left?" > >She nodded vigorously. GYPSY (Stone): Oo! That nolos my contendre! >"I don't think they meant to be gone all that long, >but it did get longer and longer.... PEARL: Enough sex talk, young lady. >and I got bored. PEARL: I said, enough! >It wasn't that formal, >really, but you remember, don't you?" When Ben didn't show any signs of >recognition, she stumbled on, "You were there, and so was, um, Claire GYPSY: You met Claire?! MAGIC VOICE: Wow! What was she like? Was she nice? What did she talk about? Her weight, right? They all talk about their weight. >and >one or two other people I don't know. It was in that big cafeteria room. I >showed up after about a half hour - PEARL: Boy, you were really Miss Patience, weren't you? >it was easy, I just asked somebody >where they'd gone and they pointed me there. Mike -- Detective Logan -- >jumped up and came over to me and said a few things, GYPSY (Alexa): Mostly what would happen if the casts of "Phantom" and "Les Miz" met in a paintball fight. >and then I sat at the >table, him on one side of me, and you were there," she indicated on the >wood table in front of her, "and Detective Briscoe was at the far end. >You'd just had, um, salads and fish I think, [ALL snigger.] >because there were leftovers >on the table. And a few beers." MAGIC VOICE (Stone): You memorized my leftovers? PEARL (Stone): Logan was right. You ARE the Royal Duchess of Whackjob. > >"I was there?" Ben couldn't believe the breach in protocol plus his >inability to recall the event. PEARL: His memory was usually- um- that long word. Photogenic. >He began to think he understood why the >officers had done what they did -- make her stay around at all costs, >without ever making her think she had to stay. GYPSY: Although taking her to the crackhouse bust on the Bowery may have been crossing the line a bit. >She wasn't officially in >custody, and if they let her go they risked her being a lot harder to find >the next time. MAGIC VOICE: Far be it from me to advise New York's Finest, but could they have hazarded trying to find her at, oh, HER APARTMENT?!? PEARL: Nah, wouldn't be in character. >Then, "Wait, I think I do remember it now." Claire returned >to the office just then, and handed him a file. He opened it, slid on his >reading glasses, and scanned it briefly. "Yes," he began again. "You didn't >keep entirely quiet, if I remember right." GYPSY: Their lunch conversation is in the file? PEARL: Good file. > >"No." Alexa remembered a political and legal debate she had engaged Ben and >one of the unknowns at the table with, a long libertarian argument that had >encompassed gun control, the death penalty, and, improbably enough, >cheesecake. GYPSY (Stone): There's too much cheesecake on the Internet! PEARL (Alexa): Oh, but some of it is very good. GYPSY: You look at cheesecake on the Internet? PEARL: Oh, it's just the perfect capper to a lovely romantic evening, don't you think? GYPSY: Well... PEARL: You get one with a good body, and it just feels so good going down. MAGIC VOICE (interrupting): Oh, stop it! It's not funny! PEARL: Whadda YOU know, Ziggy? You're as funny as an enema. MAGIC VOICE: I'd laugh through yours. > >"That was you," he exhaled. "I must say I'm surprised." > >"I can tell." [Pearl and Gypsy rise to exit the theater.] PEARL: Ha! That Dorothy Parker role model stuff just paid of in metric tons of wisecracks and mockery! MAGIC VOICE: And that means so much, coming from the president of the Vivian Vance Fan Club. PEARL (stops, climbs over seat): All right, that's it! Come here, you! GYPSY: Pearl, no! PEARL: Stay out of this, Shop Vac! MAGIC VOICE: Try and catch the wind, ugly bag of mostly water! PEARL (growling, facing toward camera): Hiiiii-keeba! [Pearl lunges towards the camera, and falls out of the shot.] GYPSY (over scuffling): No! Please! Not in the theater! I just had it steam cleaned! [Logo, Commercials - Aaaaah, Allegra!] --- End Part 4 --- Not plane, nor bird, nor even frog, it's just li'l ol' me, E-maildog pinkboybuffet@hotmail.com Next --- Home MSTing: "Name of the Game" --- Part 5 of 8 --- [OPEN ON: Bridge, darkened. Close-up of Pearl's face.] PEARL: Who ya gonna call? [PULL BACK. Pearl is in a Ghostbuster's outfit, complete with gun.] PEARL (diabolically): It ain't Dial-A-Mattress, Ziggy! [Pearl fires a beam of electrical discharge towards the camera. A ship's battle alert siren goes off.] MADGE (yawning): Mm, nice nap. Hi Pearl! Trying to kill me, huh? PEARL: No, it's a flossing alternative. Open wide! [Pearl shoots the gun at another part of the ship.] MADGE: Ooh, tell me. Are you the lame, stupid ones from "Ghostbusters 2", the lame, stupid ones from "The Real Ghostbusters", or the lame, stupid ones from "Extreme Ghostbusters"? PEARL: These are the high-power plasma bolts you forged in life! [Pearl whirls and fires at another part of the ship. An urgent buzzer starts playing beneath the siren. Gypsy pops up, in a panic.] GYPSY: Pearl! You're breaching our hull integrity! PEARL: I got your hull integrity right here, pal! MADGE: That doesn't even mean anything! PEARL: Nah, but it sure sounds cocky, don't it? [Pearl pushes Gypsy back down, and fires again, laughing.] MADGE (as battle computer): Warning! Hull breach imminent. Oxygen levels depleting. Pearl is a wussy-pussy babypants. PEARL: Enjoy a freshly made flame-broiled Whopper with extra mayo, pickles and a side of OBLIVION! [Pearl fires one last blast to the right. An explosion- the hull is breached. The outrushing air pulls debris violently off the screen, and Pearl with it. She grabs desperately onto the desk.] [CUT TO: Head-on view Pearl, hanging onto the desk, pulled horizontal due to the breech behind her, beyond which lies the cold void of space. Frantic, Pearl glances to the desk and sees...] [INSERT: Console on the desk. A big red button labeled SELF-DESTRUCT.] PEARL (vengefully): Magic Voice! I'll see you in HEEEEEEELLLLLLLL!!! [INSERT: Pearl lets go of her grip to press the button.] [ANGLE ON: Breach, as Pearl is pulled out. Her screaming form fades into the vastness of space.] [EXTERIOR OF SOL. After a beat, it EXPLODES.] [CUT TO: HEXFIELD VIEWSCREEN, where we see the explosion of the SOL. Pull back to the Bridge. Gypsy and Pearl are watching the image.] GYPSY: See? That's what's in store if you two don't quit fighting. MADGE: Your point being? PEARL: I am NOT that fat. [Buzzer sounds, lights flash.] GYPSY: Fiction sign! Quit fighting or no "Felicity" for a month! PEARL: I am NOT that fat! Look at me! MADGE: Oh, quit whining, babypants. | 6 |... ( 5 )... [ 4 ]... > 3 <... = 2 =... / * \ [CUT TO: Theater. Gypsy and Pearl file back into the theater.] PEARL: Yeah, well, I've got my eye on you, girlfriend. MADGE: Same likewise, swinefodder. > > -------- MADGE: Quadruplets sleeping! PEARL: Stop it. > >She was bored. PEARL: She's not alone! >Sitting in the same wooden chair for a half hour -- which >was supposed to be only a few minutes - GYPSY: You couldn't walk away to watch an Outback Steakhouse commercial in a few minutes! MADGE (Alexa): C'mon, ram that lamb down your throat! Eat like a python! Move, you! >had worn down her patience and she >was on the verge of just walking out, trouble or no. They couldn't hold >her, could they? GYPSY: Not Alexa. No man could. She was wild- wild like the untamed suburb of Camden she called home. >Not without charging her, she didn't think. During that >half hour, she had time to ponder, PEARL (sings): I punder, as I ponder... ugh. Never mind. >and think about how it was she had come >to be sitting in a police station, waiting to be questioned, and the >imposition began to wear on her better nature. GYPSY: Oo, it's getting so blindly impersonating your evil twin is just one big headache after another! >But she couldn't just walk >out -- not without the dogs. MADGE: Disney remakes "Not Without My Daughter". PEARL: With Don Ameche as the voice of Scout! >She wasn't certain when or why it started happening, but like a glass >of wine Alexa felt a rush in her head at the day's events, and she >slid further into Amelia, ALL (Pearl holds hands up): Whoa-ho! Stop! Hold the phone! GYPSY: I knew the "Ellen" reunion was gonna be trouble. >beginning to feel reckless, safe in her disguise, MADGE (Alexa): Hah-hah, I'm the evil twin now! I'm gonna get Alexa in so much troub- oh. > and as she did her thoughts continued back to Detective Logan -- or, > as she began to think of him, Detective Mike. PEARL: Didn't he host a kiddy show in the 50's? >Her instant dislike had actually been something else, only she'd been >acting at the time and hadn't let herself realize it. Something about >his bullying, macho attitude she found humorous, yet appealing, GYPSY (sadly): If Gloria Steinem were dead, she'd be rolling in her grave. PEARL (sadly): Tell me about it. > and his round eyes, with a hint of strong line >under them, made her feel giddy. And in her giddiness, she turned to a >nearby desk cop and asked where the big lunch was being held. MADGE: OK. So, Kit's editor tells her something like, "The story isn't repetitive enough, so go back and write the same scene two, maybe three times, and adjust your style to that of a helpless fluffy schoolgirl with a crush on her gym teacher." GYPSY: Uh... kinda. >Without even >looking up he said "the Cafeteria, third floor," so she took her purse >and left the room. Finding the place wasn't hard - PEARL: Seeing as how she was told where it was and all. >she followed food odors, and strolled into the cafeteria like she >belonged there, cool and confident as Amelia. GYPSY (Alexa): Confit of duck, please. With Jerusalem artichokes and the roasted vegetable melange. PEARL (cook): Duuuuuuh... we'se got chili, chips, and Bud Light. >She did not tell this to Ben, though. GYPSY: But didn't she just...? PEARL: Oh, man. I'm so confused. MADGE: You can present multiple viewpoints in a story, but all by the same character? >There was too much risk. But a lot >had happened over one lunch time, and she remembered it clearly, though >as in a dream. PEARL: As if Patrick Duffy had suddenly decided he'd return to "Dallas" after his character was killed. >Immediately, Logan had left the table and in a few strides was standing >next to her, taking her wrist and leaning over close to her ear. >"You're not supposed to be here." MADGE: Now she breaks out into a rousing chorus of "Voices Carry". >She frowned. "I got bored. A girl has to have something to do," she >told him, pouting like Amelia did. GYPSY: Yeah, rich self-confident women debase themselves like this all the time. PEARL: Leona Helmsley built a vast real estate empire on hissy fits. > >She loved the fact that she practically made him grind his teeth in >annoyance. "Fine. So stay. We're almost done. But don't say a word." GYPSY (Alexa): Rimpidex! There, that's not a word! > >Alexa had laid a finger over her lips, a long, manicured, pink nail, GYPSY: Driven by a pearl-handled feminine claw hammer. >thanks to a few months' of Amelia's attentions. "You won't even know >I'm there, Detective Mike," she'd whispered back, and for a moment he >looked bemused, like a spell had been blown in his face. MADGE (Logan): Her lips say yes, her nails say yes... one word from her tongue and mom's off to Motel 6! >His grip on her wrist slackened, >and they took their seats at the table. Just as she was about to fully >sit, her skirt pulled up to reveal the tops of her garters, [All giggle.] >and she smoothed it back over, knowing only one person had seen that. MADGE: I am woman, hear me whore! >It had been accidental, >in a way, and she nearly blushed at it -- and the silliness of it; it >felt like she was in a cheap porno movie for a second - PEARL: If this were a porn flick, it've been over two hours ago! >then at the pleasure >she got from knowing he'd seen it. GYPSY: Finally! I'm in command of being used and exploited! >What was she trying to accomplish? She had no idea. MADGE: That makes two of us! >Perhaps this was her own way of bullying back the bully from earlier. GYPSY: So her mother taught her bullies only back down if you put out? PEARL (Alexa): Stop teasing me or I'll twirl my blouse over my head! >But quite suddenly, because she could remember his breath in her >ear, it became more than that. > >Ben heard only the bones of this. MADGE (Stone): So you're in your leathers, Logan's tied to the bed... >During the wrap up of the meal, she began to steal glimpses of Logan >from the side of her vision, and once or twice caught him doing the >same thing. When their eyes met, both quickly looked away. MADGE (Goofy): D'oh, gorsh! PEARL (Goofy): Womens is purdy- huh-hyuk! Huh-hyuk! >A thrill ran up her spine, >and she grew bolder, finally taking part in the table debate, and > making her own valid points. GYPSY (Alexa): Deport'em all if they can't speak English! They're not citizens! >Showing off, certainly. Getting a rise out of her seat partner? [All clear throats.] >She was hoping so. It was gloriously fun. PEARL (Alexa): I'm so naughty! He must spank me! Firmly first- then harder! Faster! > >After an hour or so, however, Alexa began to feel anxious about getting >back before Amelia, who occasionally came home early only to leave >again later in the evening. She didn't want to have to explain why she >had been out with the dogs, and dressed in Amelia's outfits. MADGE: Alexa has a lot in common WITH THE AUTHOR! >So as everyone else was beginning to pull away, Alexa stood and walked >around the table to shake Ben Stone's hand. "Thanks for the lunch," she >told him. "And the conversation." > >Ben had shrugged. "You held your own. Wouldn't want to go up against >you in court." > >She had smiled. PEARL (Alexa): You can go up against me any... (breaks character) This is getting pretty tiresome, actually. >"Hopefully, you won't have to." > >Logan, hearing everything, had reached her just as she told him that, >and brusquely pulled her back. "I think we have to go." > >She backed into him for a second, caught off balance, and for a moment >she felt him across her back, felt how sturdy he was, warm and solid, MADGE: -his burgeoning manhood filling her soul with... oh, I just can't anymore. PEARL: This fanfic takes wholesome family sexual innuendo, and just perverts it into something dirty! >and she knew she'd done what she'd been trying to do all afternoon. >They hadn't said a civil word to one another in their lives, yet they'd >managed to turn each other on. GYPSY: Oh did I? Sorry! I didn't MEAN to! >Without backing away she half turned and their noses nearly touched. PEARL: Eskimo porn, ahoy! >"Am I free to go, then?" she asked softly. "I thought I was still >in custody." MADGE (Logan, startled): Dah, no! You're... here to sign my yearbook! > >Catching himself, Logan took a step back. "You never were in custody." > >She raised an eyebrow, another gift from Amelia. GYPSY (Alexa): The doctor said I needed a kidney, but... >"Our little talk, I'm afraid, will have to wait. PEARL (TV announcer): Optional Police! In Color! > I still need to get my dogs and get home. >Detective Mike, will you see me out?" ALL: Yes! Oh yes! Show her out show her out show her out! PEARL: And call for the SWAT team in case you screw it up! >"Dogs?" asked Claire, still sitting at the table. "You have dogs in > your office?" MADGE (Logan): Don't be ridiculous. They're in the holding cell! > >"Don't ask," Logan told her. "Long story." > > -------- > GYPSY: And that made it eight dashes longer! PEARL: Yeah, if it weren't for the dividers I bet we'd be finished already. >She only recalled to Ben what he had obviously seen for himself. "And >then, as he walked me out to the cell where the dogs were being held, MADGE (Alexa): We found the dogs' lawyer had already posted bail. PEARL: They were halfway to Mexico before we could even call the Feds. >we stopped for a minute in the hallway, and he asked me what I did in >the evenings. I told him I went dancing, at this club called the >Cantina on 43rd Street. GYPSY: You know, nine blocks uptown from The Miracle. > In fact, I told him, I was going that evening. He said he might have > to stop by there sometime." > >"So you asked him on a date?" Ben asked, his eyes wider. PEARL (Alexa): Well, technically he was stalking me. But he was just so sweet about it. >"You'd nearly been arrested, but a date was on your mind?" MADGE: No aspect of the investigation gets past the steely logic of-- that guy. >Alexa frowned. "Come on, Mr. Stone, GYPSY: Back of the class, Duh-schowitz! >I hadn't even been questioned, much less arrested. PEARL (Alexa): Though he was about to slap the cuffs on me, if you know what I mean. >Besides, from what I heard later, they weren't even after >Amelia then. They thought she might have seen something, but not that >she'd actually killed anyone. I didn't see anything wrong with it." GYPSY: Wait- she thought it was OK, because of facts she didn't know about yet? MADGE: That Jeanne Dixon course in rationalization skills is really paying off for her. >She could afford to be indignant, because that highly edited version of >the hallway scene was very little like what really occurred. GYPSY (uncomfortable): Hooooooooo, Nellie. PEARL: This is like a second-hand romance novel where the good parts are already marked. Which isn't a bad thing, come to think of it. > The hallway had been dim, some bulbs out, and it was really only a > service way to another bank of elevators. MADGE: It was marked by a sign that said, "R Rating, Straight Ahead." >Alexa never saw where Detective Briscoe went; PEARL: Oh, let's leave SOMETHING to the imagination here, please. > it was just Detective Logan and herself, him gripping her upper > forearm as though to keep her in check. PEARL: (Logan, feeling forearm): Hey! You work out? >About halfway down the dim hall, he let go and >cornered her up against the wall, leaning toward her with one arm >propping him up. MADGE (Logan): Am I too AGGRESSIVE?! Do I come on too STRONG?! ANSWER ME, DAMMIT! >"What was lunch all about?" GYPSY (Alexa): Well, those little hot dogs were called "hors dourves". You were NOT expected to fill a sandwich with them. >"Is that what you've wanted to ask me, Detective Mike?" Alexa had > raised one knee up off the wall, GYPSY: She's kneeling on the wall! She's a shaman, rewriting the laws of gravity! PEARL: No, it's just awkwardly phrased, Gyps. >pressing herself into the concrete. He was very >close to her face, and she could smell the lunch and the beer they had >both just had mixed with his cologne. It was like wine, PEARL: Beer like wine? MADGE: That Napa Valley microbrewery is just too "out there" for me. >she felt drunk with her adopted persona, and fearless. > >"It's Detective Logan," he told her, not too emphatically, his eyes >scanning her face. GYPSY (as computer processing): Brr-d-d-brr-d-d... Error input Line 407. > >"Logan makes me think of an airport in Boston," she told him. "I like >Detective Mike better." PEARL (Logan, still processing): Answer unclear, ask again. > >And then he had leaned in [All begin humming "Love is a Many Splendored Thing".] ALL: Ba-da-da-da-da, ba-da-da-da-da, ba-da-da-da-da, ba-da-da-da-da- >and they had kissed, ALL (reaching crescendo): DUUUULLLL! Ba-da, BORED, da, WE'RE, FED UP! >not soft and tentative, but >deep and hungrily, instinctive and wet. MADGE: Hm. I hope they remembered to Vaseline their lips. Otherwise they're not going to get a good seal. > She remembered his tongue feeling smooth and soft inside her mouth, GYPSY (Alexa): Hey! That's a donut! PEARL (Logan): Whoap, sorry. Didn't really have time to chew dessert. >and they kissed without touching anywhere >else or moving from their positions at the wall. When he pulled back, >he still hovered within inches of her face. MADGE (Logan, lustily): Shall we... sign the pre-nup now? >"What do you do at night, Ms. Page, when you're not slumming at cop >lunches?" PEARL (Alexa): I take my slum on the road, slum up the local bar scene. >"I go dancing," she told him, and named the club. It was true -- it was >the one true Alexa thing GYPSY: Don't you DARE screw up Anna Quindlen's book! >he now knew about her. "I like to dance. Tonight, I dance." MADGE: Zorba, the Geek. >"I think I might have to stop by there sometime," he said back, slowly, > and there was a bit of silence between them a moment or two. PEARL (Logan): You like muffins? I really like muffins. >"You did that on purpose at lunch, didn't you." > >"Did what, Detective Mike?" > >He ran the back of his hand down her cheek. "I think you know." GYPSY (Alexa): What, the beer can thing? Licking the silverware? Stuffing luncheon meat in my bra? Help me out here. >And leaned >in again for another of those death-defying, life drawing kisses. MADGE (Alexa): Did it provide a service of some- blub! Gag! Cough! Damn, warn me next time! >When they >pulled back this time, though, she darted under his arm. GYPSY (Alexa): Whee! I'm a dragonfly! > >"Are you a good cop, Detective Mike?" she asked him, and he blinked. PEARL (Logan): Uh, sure! The best! Uh... we're talking about sex, right? >"Of course," he told her, completely sincere in his surprise at the >question. MADGE: Just how she likes'em. Good, honest, and dim as a six-watt light bulb. >They didn't say another word until she was outside with her dogs, in >the sunshine, and things felt real again. GYPSY (as dogs): Ah, god bless our legal system! MADGE (as dogs): The press! Where's the press! PEARL (as Daniel Day Lewis): Me father died in a British dog pound for somethin' he didn't do! >"The Cantina," he repeated to her, >and she nodded, doubting he'd ever set foot in it. > >"Thank you, Detective Mike, for a most educational afternoon," she told >him, and slid into a cab with her dogs. PEARL: Educational? GYPSY: Well, we did learn that "no drinking on duty" thing is more a suggestion than a policy. MADGE: And we learned that high-profile murder investigations can be back-burnered to provide kennel services to the upper class. > Ben didn't hear beyond the sanitized version, and when Alexa paused, > she saw him look over his shoulder at his assistant, Claire. What > Alexa didn't know was that Claire, chasing after Logan that afternoon > to ask about a deposition, PEARL: -knowing she'd have to count his foot stomps to get his answers. >had seen them from the far end of the hallway. But Claire had >not said a word to Ben - ALL: WHAT?! >the ethics of what she had seen were dodgy, but not worth bringing up. ALL (screaming bloody murder): NOOOOOOO!!! GYPSY: She gave Claire the brains of a sea sponge! MADGE: It's OK, Claire! It's not your fault! We still respect you! PEARL: Oh, man! That made me feel dirtier than the lip mashing! >Until now. > >Ben caught the slight shake of his assistant's head and interpreted it >correctly. MADGE (as Stone): Oh! Sorry. >"Ms. Page. Alexa. If you lie about the small things, we can't >possibly expect to believe you on the big things." > >Alexa paused, stunned at what they had chosen to point out as a lie -- >the one event she had glossed over. GYPSY: Well, there was that whole garter thing, too. Be fair. >Her throat welled up and through the knot >she said, "That's the only story you'll hear from me. Maybe there is >more. But you won't hear it from me." MADGE: This is pretty prescient to the Clinton grand jury testimony. > >Stone decided to ask his assistant for more details later. He could >decide then what was worth pursuing. "Fine, then. So you went home. >Then what." > > -------- PEARL: Then she pulled the legs off a centipede. > >She got back to the apartment and quickly showered and changed, MADGE: Letting the steamy wet heat cling to her body like so much- oh, I can't take this any more. > stepping out just as Amelia was getting home. Wrapped in a robe, GYPSY: She just changed! Jeez, the AUTHOR'S not even listening anymore! >she emerged from >her bedroom and greeted her sister, asking about her day. > >"Crazed, as usual." Amelia sighed dramatically. PEARL (Amelia): I'd got the old man's body stowed beneath the floorboard, when the cops come by and wouldn't you know, his heart starts beating! >"And naturally, more tonight." > >"Tonight?" ALL (sing): Oh-ooooooh! > >She nodded. "There's a do upstate and Staffan's picking me up in about >two hours. [All sniggle.] MADGE: Staffan? Last name Fection? > Another client. You know how it is." GYPSY: I don't even know what you DO! >"Oh." Alexa was dying to tell her sister what had transpired between >her and the strange policeman, GYPSY: Columbo? MADGE: How appropriate for a fanfic that just won't go away! PEARL (as Columbo): Oh, eh, one more thing... >but couldn't figure out a way to do so without >giving away her disguise, so she said, GYPSY: All people whose twin sister isn't dumb enough to be questioned on a murder she didn't commit, raise their hand. NOT SO FAST, Amelia! >"I walked your dogs this afternoon." > >"Don't you always?" > >Alexa paused. "Well, yeah." > >"Yes, Alexa, say 'yes.' 'Yeah' is for children." > >"Yes," Alexa pressed her lips together. MADGE (Alexa): Mpg, mph mm hm mbg! >"I did. Only, today, I ran into >some people who knew you." PEARL (Alexa): Well, the chauffeur did. I just told him not to stop. >Amelia sat up straight. MADGE: Boi-oi-oi-oing! >"Really?" > >"They thought I was you." > >"And you...." > >"I let them think it," Alexa said. > >Amelia smiled. "Who were they?" > >Alexa folded her arms. "They said they were policemen, Amelia." GYPSY: "They said"? You were at the precinct! PEARL: Man, Helen Chenowith isn't this paranoid. >Amelia paled visibly. "Oh? And...what did you tell them, Alexa?" MADGE (Alexa): I told them to speak to my imaginary friend's twin sister, Screwtape. >"Nothing. I thought it was about parking tickets, and then the dogs ran >away, and they chased after them. We never got a chance to talk." GYPSY: Wow. That's so deep! Almost haiku-like in its multi-layered meanings. I wish I could reiterate tired plot points like that. >Amelia stood very close to Alexa and held her shoulders. MADGE (as spine snapping): Kr-r-r-r-ik! >It wasn't quite threatening, but Alexa felt very uneasy. She could >never lie to Amelia... how could she stare at herself and tell an >untruth? PEARL: Oh, how does Hanson call themselves "musicians"? It's just life! >"You said nothing to them, Alexa?" >"That's what I said," Alexa told her. MADGE: And it's what I'll say again in a few paragraphs. And AGAIN and AGAIN and... >"Why do you seem so concerned? I thought it was about parking tickets." PEARL (moaning): Parking tickets again! GYPSY: I'll give you three-to-one Amelia doesn't even own a car! MADGE (deep-voice announcer): Two-fisted DMV action! >Amelia stood up and walked around, and for a moment Alexa wasn't sure >what her reaction would be. When she turned, and her eyes were alight, MADGE (as Santa): MERRY XMAS TO ALL! AND TO ALL A GOOD... oh. >Alexa let out a breath of relief. "Alexa, darling, you're wonderful!" GYPSY (Amelia): It took me YEARS to get that evil! >And Amelia hugged her sister. "I'm so pleased." Alexa didn't know what >had caused her sister so much pleasure, [All clear their throats, and Pearl tugs at her collar.] > but she let > it ride. "But it isn't about parking tickets, is it, Amelia." MADGE: Alternate side of the street plotting! >The joy she had just emoted disappeared in a second. "If parking >tickets was good enough for the police, my dear sister, it is good >enough for you." ALL (dust motes): WOULD YOU FORGET THE BLOODY PARKING TICKETS!?! GYPSY (dust mote): She is SO disturbing! MADGE (dust mote): C'mon, guys! Let's push the thermostat to 280 and roast her like a veal breast! [Logo, Commericals - Uh-oh! Better get Maaco!] --- End Part 5 --- E-mail House on the Prairie... pinkboybuffet@hotmail.com Next --- Home MSTing: "Name of the Game" --- Part 6 of 8 --- >"They asked me where you were last night. I told them you were at that >party." > >"And I was, Alexa, I was." GYPSY (Amelia): Poking holes in my alibi is for children, Alexa. Ungrateful, annoying, short-lived children. > >She didn't know what to say after that, and hated the sudden tension >between them. "All right," she said, letting it fall there. PEARL: TIM-BERRR! >"So am I almost >ready?" she asked, trying to change the subject. > >Amelia cocked an eyebrow. "Just about, my dear, just about." MADGE: She's waiting for her flesh to fall off the bone. >She paused and looked Alexa up and down. "You're not going back to >that awful club again, are you?" > >"What's wrong with it?" MAGIC VOICE: Other than being a den of unprotected sex and drug abuse, you mean? PEARL: Doesn't it seem like just yesterday she said she never went to the same club twice? GYPSY: I keep expecting Harry Mudd and the Enterprise crew to walk in and shoot her with imaginary phasers. > >Her sister rolled her eyes. MADGE: Craps! You lose! >"Nothing, my dear, just a bad habit, I suppose. We all have them. PEARL: Yeah, but hers don't require a keepin' a woodchipper in the rec room. >I just like to know what you're up to." > >Staffan came right on time at six, GYPSY: Staffan Fetchit? >and Alexa hid in her room so not to >spring any surprises on Amelia's assistant/date. When she heard the door >latch behind them, she put the conversation she'd had with Amelia out of >her head and got dressed for some serious dancing that evening. MADGE (Alexa): I'm going to Virginia Reel like it's 1799! > > -------- > GYPSY: If cows knew Morse Code! >"What day was that, Ms. Page?" Ben asked her. > >"September. MADGE: September was a weekday, wasn't it? >September eighth, I think, Mr. Stone. It was a Thursday night, >I'm sure of that." > >"Why are you so sure?" > >"They do an all-70s music night. Real cheesy, but it's one of my >favorites." PEARL: What a whimsical, magical, frozen TV dinner of a life she leads! > >"Go ahead, Ms. Page. Did anything happen at the Cantina?" > > -------- MADGE (Alexa): Why yes! Someone took the legs off eight bar stools! > >In fact, it had. PEARL: And after twelve pages of filler, maybe you'll read about it. > >Freddy GYPSY: Kruger! PEARL: Well, they're in a disco, so this does qualify as a horror post now. >greeted her with open arms as she slid onto the dance floor, amidst >all of the Thursday night regulars. Disco balls sent fragmented light >snowing around the room while green and blue spotlights turned the floor >into pulsating, colorful mayhem. GYPSY: Oo, it's a Studio 54 Christmas! MADGE (as narrator): But Joseph's name was not on the list. So they wrapped the child in swaddling clothes and took it to the back of the line. >"Darling," he embraced her lightly. "You >look splendid tonight!" PEARL: I simply LOVE your bathrobe! > >"Freddy, you always look swell yourself," she told him and pecked him on >the cheek. GYPSY (Freddy): Ow! > >"What's the occasion?" he shouted over the song. MADGE: The busiest retail period of the year! Oh, and some religious freaks are going on about some birthday or other. > >"I might have a visitor tonight," she winked at him. PEARL (Alexa): Have your stockings been hung by the condom machine with care? > >"Ooh, is he cute?" cooed Gretchen behind them. MADGE: A right jolly old hunk! >Alexa grinned. "See for yourself. He'll stick out like the original sore >thumb in here." Of that Alexa was certain. She hadn't told either Logan >or Ben Stone something about Thursdays at Cantina - GYPSY: Boy, I hope her nose doesn't grow from all this TRUTH she's telling. >that it was an openly gay evening, PEARL (Santa, nervously): Ho-ho-whoa! I mean, Santa's a jolly old elf and all, but whoa! >albeit with a healthy sprinkling of heterosexual anomaly. MADGE: Heterosexual anomaly? Isn't that stamped on Michael Jackson's passport? >The mix of disco music had always drawn a large gay crowd, GYPSY: Uh-huh. >but at the Cantina, >there was safety in numbers, and as the night stayed fixed in the week, >the regulars knew where they could congregate. [All sigh in boredom.] PEARL (muttering): Screw this. [Pearl takes out a newspaper. She fights with it a little bit, the rumpling noise quietly filling the theater.] >Alexa knew Freddy from a bar her >band had once played at, GYPSY: Pearl? I don't think you can read that in here. PEARL: Oh, like I care anymore. GYPSY: Evil Mike controls the Satellite! You're putting our lives in danger! PEARL: You want the Living section? GYPSY: Oo, Living section! Please! MADGE: You got Real Estate there? [Pearl lays a section of paper in front of Gypsy, and a section of paper across the back of an empty seat for Magic Voice.] >and Gretchen was a roommate from her old apartment >in the Village. [All continue reading. Pearl turns a page of her newspaper, and coughs.] >Gretchen swung both ways. [All look up from their papers.] >Once she'd flirted with Alexa, [All laugh, and return to their papers.] PEARL (snorting): Yeah, right. >telling her her long blonde hair was the biggest turn-on, but Alexa >carefully put her off. Still, they remained friends, and saw each other >at least once a week, thanks to the Cantina. [Magic Voice laughs.] PEARL (looks up from paper): Hm? MADGE: Oh. Article on property taxes in Jersey. What a joke. PEARL (returning to paper): Hm. >They joined hands and bumped back >and forth to "The Hustle" as the music picked up, and were soon joined >by other scene regulars, from Perry, who worked in a local record store, >to Sylvia, who used to be Sylvian, GYPSY (looking up from paper): Like that means anything. >to Tweak, GYPSY: Who used to be Tweakie? MADGE (Tweekie): Bee-dee-bee-dee-... hand me the editorials, Buck. [Pearl lays another section of paper over the seat.] >who was their main contact for >any illegal substances that might be required. [Pearl sighs, and turns her page.] PEARL: I was gonna say this isn't how you create a likable character, but since that was never an issue... >He wove his way through the >bunched dancers, asking if they were feeling fine, and if not, could he >help. Tonight, Alexa decided to stick to alcohol -- no telling if Logan >was the kind of cop who wouldn't take that sort of behavior lightly. [All shout and scream in disgust. Pearl throws her paper at the screen.] GYPSY: Oh, come ON! PEARL: Grrrr... take THAT! MADGE: What is WITH this piece of crap story?! What WORLD does it live in? PEARL (crumples up Gypsy's paper, throws it at the screen): And THAT! GYPSY: One where cops swear to uphold the law, unless there's a really cool party going on. PEARL (repeating for Madge's paper): And THAT! You STUpid, PIECE of- (realizes it's not worth it, sits back down) d'oh! >That is, >of course, if he showed, which she couldn't quite imagine. MADGE (as Mr. Rogers): Maybe Picture Picture can help us take the trolley to the Land of Make Believe. > >"Ooh, luscious!" she heard a familiar voice behind her, and turned to >give Tweak a hug. "You are looking absolutely edible!" PEARL: So does a rump roast. And it has more character! >"Tweak, you just think I'm gonna treat my friends tonight." > >"Well, honey, since you moved uptown you sure can afford it..." > >Gretchen pinched Alexa's earlobe. "Is this your sugar daddy you're >bringing to meet us?" MADGE: More like a Tootsie Roll, if you catch the drift of my aspersion. > >Alexa winked, and let the lie she had used before slide. "Not exactly, >my dear. But he is unique." GYPSY (Gretchen): Why are you talking like an upper-class breeding error? >"Ooh, guests!" exclaimed Tweak. PEARL (Tweekie): Be-de-be-de-be-de... voicework by Scott Thompson! >"Well, honey, with that little number you've got on, GYPSY: Oo, she's wearing Boy George's "Colour by Number" dress! > I give you even money he's gonna think you pretty unique, too." > >After she'd been there about an hour or so, it was getting around >ten-thirty or eleven, MADGE: Wait- she's missing ER! PEARL: Oh, even her life can't revolve around television forever. >and she was giving up on seeing Logan. Alexa really wanted to let loose, >get some sweat worked up, but if she did and he showed up, she sincerely >doubted he'd think she was the same rich bitch he'd known at the >station. Still, by eleven she was quickly losing interest. MADGE: The DJ started playing "The Very Best of ABBA". >Of course it was too soon to expect him to show...maybe in a day or >two...surely he had more interesting things...or people...to be doing. GYPSY: Surely he had some Star Wars "Tie Fighter" models to paint, or a Dungeons and Dragons group to DM. >After the eleven o'clock hour their little group took a break by the >bar, slurping down rum and cokes, PEARL (cackling): Slurping? This a 7-11 disco? They pour rum into the Squishy machine? MADGE: Yeah, they probably make the bartender serve'm in "Batman Forever" commemorative cups with straws poking out the plastic cover. >and Freddy said he figured her guest wasn't coming. "Too bad, >baby," he said GYPSY: Telly Savalas was gay? >and pulled her head to his chest and stroked it. "Next time >better." MADGE: Freddy translates everything to Japanese and back, I guess. PEARL: Sounds like Santa took his clause! Ho! Ho! Hoo. > >She stood up straight. "Oh, Freddy, it didn't mean that much." She took >an ice cube from her cup and sucked on it, trying to cool down, then >when that one disappeared rubbed another one over her neck and chest. [All titter.] GYPSY (shaking her head): She's dripping her hormones in the wrong puddle. MADGE (Freddy): Oh, man, if she were Leonardo DiCaprio I would be SO hot right now... > "I'm trying to stay cool, and it just isn't working." PEARL (Alexa): I guess I'll just have to strip down to my panties. You don't mind if I strip down to my panties, do you Freddy? >Freddy was staring in the distance. MADGE (Freddy, thinking): Figure skating... bodybuilding... HGTV... >"It sure ain't, honey, but keep doin' >it cause there's some big hunk coming over your way." GYPSY: A big hunk of what? Shrapnel? PEARL: I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but... > >She stopped moving the ice cube and turned in the direction Freddy was >looking to see Detective Logan heading her way. MADGE: Eh. More a slab than a hunk. >Only the bad suit was gone, replaced with PEARL: A hundred feet of Saran Wrap and a strategically placed meat inspection sticker. >a soft-looking blue shirt and jeans. He had his coat hung >over his arms, and he was walking deliberately, but unrushed. Alexa >flushed deep. GYPSY: What a waste of water. >"Freddy," she turned to him, suddenly realizing a big problem. MADGE: The champagne's not Korbel! >"Freddy, that's him!" > >"You sure were right, honey," he told her. "If only I was his type." > >"Freddy, do me a favor," she said. > >"What, Alexa?" > >"Don't call me that," she urged. "Just...call me 'A' tonight, okay? PEARL: Not unreasonable, considering she's such a "b". MADGE: You sure you can't turn HER off, Gyps? GYPSY: You know, there was a break coming up. I can lock the theater doors and we can keep reading. PEARL and MADGE (whining): Gyps! Noooo! GYPSY: Then behave. >He thinks my name is something else. Tell the others, call me 'A'." GYPSY (Alexa): Here, I'll put this red letter on my blouse to remind you. >Freddy raised an eyebrow. "Whatever you say, sugar....only when Tweak >comes around, I want my reward, gotcha?" > >She nodded furiously. "Of course. Anything." MADGE: And thus, count three of her indictment falls into place. >Freddy zipped off into the crowd, leaving her with a melting ice cube in >her hand, leaning up against the bar. "Look," she crooned as Logan >approached, just loud enough for him to hear, "it's Detective Mike." > >He leaned against the bar next to her. "So this is Cantina." PEARL (Logan): I was expecting Luke Skywalker and some weird-ass aliens. >"I see you found the time to make it." > >"If it's worth it, I find the time." > >She threw the ice cube back in her cup. GYPSY: Ew! Sweat germs! >"Oh, don't stop on my account," he told her. "I liked watching that from >across the room. MADGE (Chauncy Gardner): I like to watch, Eve. >So did about any other guy with his eye on you, no doubt." > >She grinned a little. "I'd doubt it, Detective Mike." > >"Oh," he grinned back and nodded his head a little. PEARL (Logan): Ha! You caught me! It was kinda gross, really. >"And why would that be?" > >On the dance floor, Freddy waved at her and Gretchen blew a kiss GYPSY: A juicy wet Dating Game kiss! PEARL: Mmmmwah! MADGE (announcer): A Chuck Barris production! >as "The >Hustle" started up. Alexa stood up straight, leaving her cup on the bar, GYPSY: Bad choice. She's gonna need protection out there. >and took a step to the dance floor. "'Cause they all prefer boys to >girls, Detective Mike!" she cried at him before being pulled into the >dance. PEARL: Eh, that's about as subtle as anything else about the 70's. >"What did you say to him, girlfriend?" Gretchen insisted. "You missed >quite a look on that mug of his." > >Alexa giggled. "Come on, girl, hustle. Don't ask questions." MADGE (to The Hustle): Doo, do-doo, do-doop, do-do-doop, DUMB! Doo, do-doo, do-doop, do-do-doop, SUCK! >While they danced, Alexa kept an eye on him, half having expected him to >leave once he found out where he was. GYPSY: He can't. Believe me, we've tried. >She knew her uncle was as homophobic >as they came, and wondered if they bred them the same here in the city. PEARL: Nah, you can't run a bigot-breeding program in the Northeast. The emissions regulations are just too much. >Apparently not, though she could tell Logan's casualness had bit the dust. GYPSY: Freddie Mercury! >But at least he stayed, for that she gave him credit. PEARL: Man, giving credit after you lose interest. You can't run a business that way! >And she watched him, flipping around suddenly GYPSY: Keri Strug! >to catch a glimpse of his face through the crowd, >wondering if he was keeping tabs on her or not, then not caring. PEARL (dully): Yawn, baby, yawn. Disco ennui. >She liked looking at his face; MADGE (Alexa): Wow. What a piece of work is clod! >it made her feel safe somehow in a way someone like >Amelia's Staffan would not. GYSPY: Well, it's kinda hard to feel safe when you're on your back laughing in someone's face. >Staffan seemed nice enough, and quite handsome >in his own way, but delicate and frail behind his round glasses and >polished nails. Logan was familiar in his brusque way, something she >could relate to, GYPSY: Nah, that can't be good, can it. MADGE: Can't think how it could be. >and his instinctive archness ALL: HUH? >at her alleged privileged bitchiness made her admire him, like >watching an enemy protect his territory. PEARL: What did THAT mean? GYPSY: I can't imagine. >And yet, there was something underneath it; he wasn't another >working-class moron like the ones she'd gone to school with MADGE: Ya know... that "alleged" bitchiness is becoming somewhat more than theoretical. >--she would never assume him to be anything less than intelligent. GYPSY (clueless Logan on dance floor): So am I doing the Macarena now? >The more she thought >about it, the more she wanted him out there with her, dancing, making a >fool out of himself in a place he never imagined he'd visit. PEARL: The more she wanted to be part of him- whole, complete. >Three or four songs later she couldn't wait for him to make the move, > and with each passing minute he began to look more and more > uncomfortable. Rushing over to him in a blur, MADGE: Faster than a speeding trollop! >she ripped the coat from his hands and threw it over the bar. PEARL: More powerful than a drunken strumpet! >"Watch that, Roger, willya?" she called to the bartender, >who waved assent. Then, snatching up the first of Logan's hands she >could reach, she tugged him to the dance floor. GYPSY (Logan, whining): Wait! That's my drinking hand! >Thankfully, the song slowed into >some obscure track from Saturday Night Fever. PEARL (Dan Fogelberg): LONGER than, there've been FI-SHES in the ocean! >"Come on," she grinned at him. "At a dance club, you dance!" MADGE (Logan): Oh, great! Let's go to a strip club next! >He said nothing, just smiled back at her and wrapped an arm around her >waist and her opposite hand in his, pulling her tight to him like a taut >thread. PEARL (as they pull close and collide): Thhhhhunk! GYPSY: I am the seamstress of your soul! >"Why, Detective Mike," she told him, "you do dance." > >"You never know what little surprises are out there," he said. "You seem >to have a few up your sleeve." MADGE (Logan, dancing): Knit one, pearl two, overhand stitch, tie off! >"Would you have come if I told you Thursday nights were mixed couples >night?" she cocked an eyebrow at him. > >"Probably not. Or maybe I would anyway. PEARL: Strike a pose, there's nothing to it! VAGUE! > I just wanted to see if you'd be >here, see if you'd been pulling my leg." > >She flushed GYPSY: Oo, again! 1,998 more and we market her! >and hoped in the dim dancefloor light he didn't see. "Weren't >you sure?" > >"I don't know. I still don't know. PEARL: Oh, how can she resist that burning intelligence of his? GYPSY: It's just leaping off the page and into our hearts! >It's not like that sort of thing happens >on the job every day. Mostly, we're dealing with dead bodies, not live >women coming on to us." > >She raised an eyebrow at him. "And yet, somehow, I think that's not true >for you." MADGE (Alexa): I sense in you a kindred skank. >He didn't answer, just smiled a little bit, and spun her around. PEARL (Logan, over the spin): Crochet! >Dizzy for a moment, she stopped moving and pulled back a little. "I >don't know what came over me at lunch. I'm -- I'm really not like that, [All suppress a sputtering guffaw.] >not in real life. GYPSY: She was in an Albert Brooks movie? >I think I just had a little too much to drink." > >"All the better for me," he said. "I'll just have to get you drunk a lot. ALL (resentful): HEY! >Hey, don't worry. That whole scene was strange for me, too. PEARL: Yeah, what was Kit Montague thinking? > I don't exactly go around kissing suspects, MADGE: The Boston Strangler, dancing next to them, overhears him and bursts into tears. > they'd have my badge like that." [Pearl and Gypsy rise to leave the theater.] PEARL: You don't need no stinking badges! Good guys are such wimps! / * \... = 2 =... > 3 <... [ 4 ]... ( 5 )... | 6 |... [OPEN ON: Corner of the bridge. Pearl, dressed in black robes and carrying a leather-bound tome, is laying a Pentagram on the floor (hers has six points, not five). Gypsy walks by her without looking, turns back before going out of shot.] GYPSY: Playing hopscotch? PEARL: Conducting an exorcism to rid the ship of Magic Voice. Good guess, though. GYPSY: Careful with the candle wax, it'll mat the carpet. PEARL: 'Kay. [Gypsy moves on, Pearl opens her book and cackles.] [CUT TO: The desk, which has a large photo of Jill Hennessy as Claire Kincaid framed in dark ribbons and flowers, as at a wake. Candles are lit beneath her.] GYPSY: Madge? MADGE (depressed): Hi, Gyps. GYPSY (looking at photo): Claire, huh? MADGE: Yeah. This crappy story made me realize how much I miss her- a female character who was strong, intelligent, yet still vulnerable and undergoing personal growth. GYPSY: The Ally MacBeal before Ally MacBeal? MADGE: Please. Claire would tolerate Flockhart's histrionics for maybe ten seconds before discreetly passing her a valium and a Philly cheesesteak. Share with us, Gyps! Look unto Claire's visage. What memories does it bring? GYPSY: Hmm... oh! It makes me wonder how Mike, Tom, and that gold guy are doing! MADGE: Oh, Christ. [The edges of the screen go swimmy.] MADGE: You can FORGET sitting shiva with me, I'll tell you that. [DREAM CUT TO: The , still barren and rocky. With a , Observer, Mike, and the bots suddenly materialize into the shot. Crow is now intact and on Observer's shoulders.] MIKE AND TOM: Gah! OBSERVER (upon seeing Crow on top of him) and CROW (upon seeing Observer beneath him): Gah! Get off! Get him off me! OBSERVER: He sharpened his claws so he can lay some hideous mechanical eggs in me! CROW: Mime germs! I've got mime germs! I'll come down with mime disease! Mike, get him off me! MIKE (pulling Crow off): Whoa, whoa, settle down you two! TOM (panicked): Stop'em, Mike! The sound of those two talking at the same time... it's freaking me out! CROW: Yeah, well it ain't exactly a Dilbert day planner for me either, pal. OBSERVER: Oh really?! Perhaps you'd prefer I returned you to that Monty Python opening credits sequence back there. [Observer starts to do his head shimmy, but Mike stops him.] MIKE: No no! Thank you, Brain Guy, we really, really appreciate it. Now we all just have to stick together, find Bobo, then attack Evil Mike and free- (Mike turns, sees something off screen) oh no! [CUT TO: A short distance away. Bobo is prone on the ground, presumably unconscious, wrapped in rope and gagged. Mike enters and checks on him, the other follow.] MIKE: I think he's alive. CROW: Oh, god, his antibody must be horrible! OBSERVER (as creepy background music begins to play): Yes, some insidious, six-headed beast from Hades, with the keen mind of Vince McMahon, and the strength of Kane and the Undertaker combined! TOM (scared): Hoooooo, it could be anywhere! Planning, plotting, stalking! [We here the ground off screen shuffle. All look up to the noise, petrified. The background music reaches a STING.] ALL: AAAAAAAUGH! [CUT TO: The sound. Standing still, in a cheap video animation insert, is a cartoon of a short teenage girl in dumpy clothes and thick horn-rimmed glasses.] DARIA: OK. I think this is where I say (does Scwarzenegger), "I'm looking fowr Zarah Con-nah." TOM (shocked): Daria Morgendorfer from MTV's "Daria"? DARIA: In the flesh. Or as fleshy as flesh-tone ink #15 gets. MIKE: You're Bobo's antibody? DARIA: No. I just play him on TV. OBSERVER: W-w-w-well, but how? DARIA: I don't know. It smacks of the handiwork of one of those wacky funster gods you see on "Hercules"? But since I haven't seen any of Sorbo's body-oil wranglers yet, I'm having my doubts. CROW: But what did you do to Bobo? DARIA: He wanted to be my friend. [CLOSE-UP: Daria.] DARIA (smiling): I don't like friends. They hamper my social life, by expecting me to have one. [ANGLE ON: Bobo, eyes closed and tied up.] DARIA (over): He asked me if I would like it if he made me a pretty blonde rag dolly. [CLOSE ON: Daria.] DARIA: I said yes. Right after our tea party discussion of the effect of the AIDS epidemic on the fear of intimacy, and our jump roping contest. [ANGLE ON: Bobo. At this angle we can see the rope that is wrapped around him is actually a jump rope.] DARIA: Two jumps, and he created knots Lance Burton never thought of. Then he fell asleep. Jane put the rag in his mouth to stop the snoring. [From the left, JANE LANE enters.] JANE: For which, if I recall, you said you'd get us a pizza. DARIA: Well, I will. Once he wakes up and I remind him of our slumber party. MIKE: Say, tell you what. Let us take the take this big furry problem off your hands, and Brain Guy'll whip you up all the red-painted, fake-cheese, soggy bread atrocities you want. [Jane and Daria look at each other.] DARIA: I don't know. Could we really digest our food, not knowing whether our little Snookums was warm, well-fed, and properly bound and gagged? JANE: Oh, I think our hearts will go on. (to Brain Guy) But there'd better be some garlic knots in this deal! OBSERVER: Can do! [The Observer does his head shimmy, with sound effects. Mike and the gang disappear with Bobo, and the set is strewn with pizza boxes piled high to the sky. Daria and Jane survey their bounty.] JANE: What? No pop? [Observer FX. A bottle pops to each girl's hand. They react for a beat.] JANE: This guy responds well to sarcasm. DARIA: Not as well as you'd think. [Daria holds her bottle up so that Jane can see.] [CLOSE ON: Bottle. It is labelled, "Froo-topia".] [ANGLE ON: Jane and Daria, looking at each other. They've been screwed again. Oh well.] [CUT TO: The Daria Logo, made out of paper mache and slowly twirling in space, while Splendora sings "La la LA la!" to the MST bumper music.] [Commercials - Got milk?] --- End Part 6 --- Now how much would you pay? Don't e-mail yet! pinkboybuffet@hotmail.com Next --- Home MSTing: "Name of the Game" --- Part 7 of 8 --- [OPEN ON: Theater. Gypsy walks back into the theater, without Madame Forrester.] GYPSY: You OK Madge? MADGE: Still in mourning. I'll recover. GYPSY: Wait a minute- where's Pearl? MADGE: Aw, who cares? >The words dead bodies and suspects rattled in her brain a minute. MADGE: Like a beebee in a tuna can. >"I >thought it was about parking tickets." [Both moan.] GYPSY: Not the parking tickets again! MADGE: Jeez, LEMMINGS have less tunnel vision than this. [We hear a noise of someone knocking something over off-stage.] GYPSY: Pearl? PEARL (dejected, off-screen): Leave me alone! GYPSY: OK. Madge didn't get exorcised. PEARL (resentful): Duh! > >He chuckled. "Hardly. You think they send out two detectives to pick up >a parking ticket violator? MADGE: Well what if she parked on someone's head? PEARL (off): I oughtta slug you! MADGE: Eh? >I work in homicide." GYPSY: Well, they cut him a check, anyway. > >Her brain raced. Surely he didn't think -- or couldn't think -- she had >something to do with murder? MADGE: After she'd been so open and honest with him! >Why would he have come, if he did? "You think >I killed somebody?" GYPSY (Logan): If I say yes, will you still ask me to the Sadie Hawkins dance? >Fear was making her voice stiff, and she shook a >little. > >"Do you think I'd be here now if I did?" GYPSY: If you were down to your last match, and could burn either this story or the master print of "Basic Instinct", which would you choose? MADGE: Oh, keep me awake all night, why don't you? [Grumbling, Pearl enters the theater. There is a horned, winged, light blue dragon-demon the size of a koala bear sitting on Pearl's head. It has a long, twining neck that cranes around to review its surroundings.] GYPSY and MADGE (startled): GAH! DEMON (just as startled, voice a cross between a parrot and Danny DeVito): GAH! PEARL (wincing in pain, clutching the seat): Guys! Don't scare it, it digs in deeper! > >"Then what ---" > >He shushed her by putting his hand over her lips. "No work. Don't > worry, really." GYPSY (mouth open, at Pearl and her demon): My stars! What happened? PEARL: Well, I was exorcising the ship and summoning the spawn of infernal darkness and what-not, and how was I supposed to know a pentagram had five sides? DEMON: Oh great. It's "The Glitches of Eastwick". PEARL: You hush! (whaps beast with rolled-up newspaper) DEMON: Ow! Quit it! I got very sensitive skin here! I bruise easy! > >"Mike, how can I not think about it? MADGE (Logan): Well why don't you go play with this nice, shiny button? GYPSY: Madge! Stop riffing! This is serious. MADGE (considering): Hmm... Pearl, trying to destroy me, summons a beast from the nether-regions of Styx- DEMON: Named Scratch! MADGE: -named Scratch- that gives her pain and torment 'til her dying days. SCRATCH: Well 'til my soap's on, anyway. MADGE: I don't really see a problem here, Gyps! [Pearl moans, clutching her head.] >What's going on?" > >He grinned. "Hey, you called me Mike." SCRATCH (craning neck to Gyps): It's his name, isn't it? PEARL: Don't you start! GYPSY: Hang tough, Pearl! I'll be back! [Gypsy disappears under the seats.] PEARL: Well hurry up! My neck's been through enough today! It doesn't need this! > >She pushed the palm of her hand into his chest. "Hey nothing. SCRATCH: Hey, the resentful version of "Hey Paul, Hey Paula"! PEARL: Shut up! SCRATCH: Oh, excuse me, Endora! I didn't notice your incantations were from the part of the Necromonicon labeled "Just Kidding!". MADGE: Calm down, Pearl. Look, join the riffing. It'll take it off your mind. Oh. I meant- PEARL: I KNOW what you meant! Sadist. >Is this some >kind of bizarro undercover thing you're pulling on me? > Is that why you're here?" MADGE: Nah, just came for the free Hot Wings. Is that them over there? > >He gave her a long look and turned down the charm. PEARL: Ew, I don't even wanna THINK what that involves. >"Look, Amelia, all we >wanted to do this afternoon was ask you a few questions. Nothing you'd > even need a lawyer for. MADGE: Does anything really fall in that category anymore? SCRATCH: Nnnnnnope! WE made sure of that. Heh-heh. PEARL: Well, you are evil, I give you that. SCRATCH: Nah, just an amoral schemer, really. I do have my days, though. >Personally, I thought we were on the wrong track, and >after the whole dog thing, where you came by yourself to the station, I >figured why bother. MADGE: Oh, god help New York if they meet a killer with a GED. >So no, I'm not spying on you. I'm here because I want >to dance. PEARL: Boy, the first draft of "The Turning Point" was a lot different. >And surprise, surprise, so are you." MADGE: It's a discotech! She came for the dignified ambiance, Sherlock? > >She began to believe him. If he really thought something was up he > wouldn't be there. SCRATCH: Yeah, he'd be home in bed with his head beneath the covers! > They wouldn't let him, she figured. She let him pull her close >again and said, "Then lunch -- I didn't have to wait for you to finish >lunch." [All but Scratch snicker.] SCRATCH (extending head to Pearl): Was she his waitress? PEARL: No, just a vapid party girl whose long lost evil twin framed her for murder. SCRATCH (pulling head back): You're kidding. PEARL: Nope, that's the story. SCRATCH (edging head toward the text): Must be one of ours. > >"My fault," he said, "I wasted your time." > >"Well," she said, "not entirely." MADGE (Alexa): When you saw my garter, I got to watch you blow beer through your nose. SCRATCH (laughing): That's funny. MADGE: Thank you! > >A moment of silence broke out between them and she found herself unable > to stop staring at him, and he at her as they danced, as if trying to >communicate something they weren't able to form words for. PEARL (Alexa): My place? MADGE (Logan): Your place. PEARL (Alexa): Caveman costumes? MADGE (Logan): Caveman costumes. >As the stare >lasted she was once aware of his closeness to her, their hips moving >together, his warm presence like a soft afghan she wanted to wrap >herself in. SCRATCH: He better store his presence in a cedar chest then. Moths'll get it. MADGE: Yeah, you wanna pass that on to your kids one day. >There was something incredibly solid, and honest about him, PEARL: Someone who would always be there when she needed someone to lie to. >and all >this time she realized he thought she was her sister. SCRATCH (extending neck to Pearl): Hey, could you guys get the Olsen twins in here? This whole story might warn them of the TV-movie hell awaiting them after puberty. PEARL: Shush! We don't control any of this. We're prisoners. SCRATCH: Oh! Oh, THAT explains it! I thought you are all just masochists. Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you. >Which made her feel >guilty, and at the same time, wonder just what Amelia was up to that > the police needed her for questioning. MADGE: Maybe we have this wrong, guys. Maybe this is just the world's longest commercial against stealing cable. SCRATCH: It has to be worth something to be stealing. > >But then the music switched tempos again, sliding into "Rubberband Man" > and the floor began to fill with craziness again, their moment broken. > She smiled and he laughed just a bit, like exhaling, and as they took > a step away from each other for more rigorous dancing Gretchen and > Freddy flounced over. "Aaaaaaaaay," they announced. SCRATCH: Sit on it! >"We found you!" > >"Gretchen and Freddy, this is Mike, Mike, my friends." > >Mike looked at Alexa a minute PEARL (commanding a dog): Shake! >and then stuck out his hand. PEARL: Yes, good boy! >"Hiya." > >"Ooh, girlfriend, so is this who you were telling us about?" Gretchen >crowed. > MADGE: Wha- She's a funky bad-ass rooster! PEARL: Old McDonald scored some smack! SCRATCH (slyly sexy): Oo, cock! That dude'll do! MADGE (laughs): That's good. Watch the blue stuff in front of Gyps, though. SCRATCH: Ah, mother hen. Gotcha. PEARL (resentful): Hey! He is NOT stickin' around! SCRATCH: Aaaaah, we'll just see about that. >Alexa blushed. > >"Yeah, you'll do!" she told Mike. "How about a dance, then, >sweetcakes?" MADGE (Logan): Have you been through booking and delousing? > >"Sorry, Gretch," Alexa broke in. "Get your own." PEARL (Gretchen): Oh right. You KNOW the 24-hour Dumb-As-Post Escort Services are all closed for the holidays! SCRATCH (laughs): Ha! That's funny. You gals are funny, man. This is fun. PEARL: Enjoy it while ya can! >And she winked at Mike. > >"Well, if you change your mind...." Gretchen trailed off and melted > back into the crowd. MADGE (horrified): The disco laser lights are too powerful! Dancers are melting left and right! Oh, the carnage! SCRATCH: They're coked-up disco freaks. MADGE: Oh, right. Carry on with the carnage! Sorry to interrupt! > >Freddy held out his hand. "Payup time, lovely, Tweak is on his way." PEARL: You know, the shocking thing is, at the end, the story reveals Tweakie is really Keyser Soze. SCRATCH: No! PEARL: Yes! > >Alexa slapped a twenty into his hand. MADGE: That's enough for- what? The right nostril of a Beanie Baby? SCRATCH: Ha! Those were ours, too. PEARL: Will you stop? I don't care! SCRATCH (head drooping): Sorry. > "That'll have to do...now scootch!" SCRATCH: Nah, not really into "scootch"- how about a dooquiri? MADGE: Or a joon and toonic on the roocks? >And she waved him off. > >"Darling!" he crooned. ALL (sing): Please be-LIEVE me! >"Thank you!" > >"Payup time?" Mike raised his eyebrows, and his face looked longer than >usual. "Should I know what that is?" MADGE: Judging from your burning intelligence, no. > >"You don't want to know," she told him. "Work or no work." > >So they danced. PEARL: They danced around Mike's professional responsibilities, the identity of the person killed, and why a rich businesswoman like Amelia would play in sleazy band! > About a half hour before the club closed, around >two-thirty, they stumbled, sweaty and more than a little tipsy, SCRATCH: Another successful meeting of Oprah's Summer Reading Club comes to a close! >out into >the early morning cool, and jumped in a cab. The alcohol and workout > began to overwhelm Alexa, MADGE: Yeah, slutting is good cardio. > and she yawned. "Oh, boy." > >"You too tired to have me over for a few minutes?" he teased. SCRATCH (Logan): And I didn't mean to say "over", if you know what I mean. Heh-heh. > >Her eyes widened. By two-thirty Amelia wasn't likely to be up, she'd > have been home ages ago. Or did she say she was staying out all night? MADGE: Hm, maybe you should read that bit again. It was only- what? 143 pages ago? > Alexa >wasn't sure. Bringing Mike over was a bad idea, PEARL: Well it was AMONGST the NUMEROUS bad ideas she's had so far. >but so was going to his >place -- she didn't know if she had enough cash to get home by cab from >wherever he might live. SCRATCH: Intricate New York subway system? Nothin' but an urban myth! >And she also didn't know if she was ready to >actually sleep with him. MADGE: She might play with him first. >Sure, playing Amelia, in her garters and high >heels was fun, but underneath it the real person, Alexa, hadn't slept >with anyone SCRATCH (laughs): Oh, right. Alexa, the virgin speed fiend! PEARL: Sounds like a Christmas story the whole family can enjoy! >and sure as hell didn't think her first would be with a cop -- oops, >detective SCRATCH: Oops. MADGE: Note she said her first would be WITH a cop, not that it'd BE a cop. PEARL: Yeah, Logan would just hang around like a chump, and hope she'd talk with him afterwards. >-- she barely knew. At the same exact instant that those thoughts >ran through her brain, her instinct began to growl at the thought of > Mike's just disappearing. SCRATCH: Meanwhile MIKE'S instincts growl at the thought of stickin' around with this loser. >They'd been dancing all night, talking crazy talk, ALL: FURBY! PEARL (as Furby): Doo, be doo! Be doo, be doo! >pressed up against each other, holding hands -- constant contact of one >form or the other, and at some point Alexa had gotten addicted to him. SCRATCH: Uh-oh. She's got a lunkhead on her back! MADGE: And that ain't good. >So >against her better judgment, Alexa heard herself saying, "I think a few >minutes would be all right." > >"So you danced, you talked, you went back to your place," Ben >interrupted, ALL (startled): YAH! SCRATCH: Whoa, where'd HE come from? PEARL: The author changes scenes without dividers, and her dividers don't indicate scene changes! >still not sure whether he was going to send internal affairs after >Logan. MADGE: "Law And Order, That Is, Law And Order When We Feel Like It", will return after these messages. >"And then?" > >"I checked to see if Amelia was in, and she wasn't. We had decaf, PEARL: Decaf! This IS the work of the devil! SCRATCH: Ha! Thank you! > and after >that I don't remember," she told him. "I was tired anyway, MADGE: Downright narcoleptic! > and I passed out >on my couch. SCRATCH: Oh, and what tale of love and romance isn't complete without the drunken demirep passing out on her evil twin's Ottoman? > When I woke up, I was on my bed and he'd left." > >"Around what time would you say you passed out, Ms. Page?" MADGE (Alexa): Oh, well as soon as I passed out I made sure to wake up again and check my watch. HOW THE HELL SHOULD I KNOW WHAT TIME I PASSED OUT?! > >She shrugged. "I have no idea. We left the club around 2:30, and took a >cab, so maybe we were home by 3:00, and I probably didn't last more > than twenty minutes after that. PEARL: Oh, honey, that's nineteen minutes longer than Logan lasted, I'll tell you what. > So I guess he left around 3:30 or something. >That's what I told you before, remember?" MADGE (Stone): Um, which flashback was that again? > >Stone thought. Yes, that jived with what he had already been told. SCRATCH: But did it jump and wail? >Only he >knew Logan hadn't actually left until nearly nine, but that didn't come >out until much later. "Go on." ALL: NOOOOO!!! PEARL (as frantic cop): All right, put the story down! On the ground! Step away slowly! SCRATCH (as nervous frantic collar): Back off man! I'll write a sequel, so help me! [Logo, Commercials - More Americans get their news from ABC News than from a proper network.] --- End Part 7 --- Portions of this e-mail have been edited for broadcast. pinkboybuffet@hotmail.com Next --- Home MSTing: "Name of the Game" --- Part 8 of 8 --- [OPEN ON: Theater. Pearl, sitting with the mysterious blue dragon-demon Scratch painfully clamped to her head, continues riffing. Magic Voice assists.] > > -------- > >She decided that full disclosure wasn't really necessary, and what > really was a half hour more or less? MADGE: Hm... He left at 9, she said 3:30... SCRATCH: It's the eighteen-and-a-half minute gap, squared! >It was true, she did pass out on the couch, >but not right after getting in the door. SCRATCH: There were some offerings to the ceramic goddess, if you follow my insinuations. >She'd checked Amelia's room, >saying her roommate might be in or might not be in, and when she saw it >was empty offered to make coffee. PEARL (Alexa, seductively): I keep the coffee over here- in the boudoir. >If Amelia had been in -- she would have had >to try something different. MADGE (slyly): Kin-ky! >She was pouring the beans in the grinder when >he came up behind her in the kitchen and wrapped his arms around her, PEARL (wrestling announcer): He's setting her up for the suplex! SCRATCH (same): Yes, but what's this? It's her evil twin Amelia! She's creeping out of the closet- she's got a chair! She's got a metal folding chair! Oh, this is trouble, folks! >under >her arms , and buried his face in her hair. SCRATCH (as Alexa): Yeah, yeah, look Dracula, I'm trying to percolate here! PEARL (up to Scratch): You can't really do voices, can you. SCRATCH: Well- I mean, I'm new at this. Give me some time. PEARL: Time? Don't you get it, you reject from a Land Called Honolee? I am NOT a Day's Inn! You're compressing my spinal column! SCRATCH: You're an invocation late for regrets, baby. PEARL: Where the hell's the Shop Vac got to?! > >She dropped the beans, which went scattering and wrapped her arms >around his, MADGE: Coffee beans have arms? > then turned to face him, curling her hair behind her ears. PEARL (sings as Folgers commercial): The best, paaart of gettin' drunk! >They stared >at each other a minute more, like they had on the dance floor, SCRATCH (as Donna Summers): Last da-a-ance... last cha-a-ance - PEARL (threatens Scratch with newspaper): Stop it now! SCRATCH (head drooping): Yes ma'am. >and then he >bent down to her and they started kissing. It was slower this time, but >the urgency was still there. MADGE (Logan): Oh, baby. I'm going take you on the floor and... oh, Seattle's Best! That's hard to get out here! > On hers his lips soft and wet pushed into her >until she bent back on the counter. Her stomach began to quiver and she >tried to imagine what Amelia would have done, PEARL (Amelia): Well, I think the first incision would be made HERE... SCRATCH: Pillow fight! >and doing so led him out to >the living room sofa, where without a beat they continued their >kissing. MADGE: Oh, "without a beat". Her Thelonius Monk album's on. >Her hands reached up to his hair, something she thought at first he'd >had too much of, but now it felt thick and beautiful under her hands. SCRATCH (as Logan): Oh, Amelia! I've loved you from the moment I thought I could bop you! >He laid >her back against the pillows on the couch PEARL: NO shoes on the couch, young man! This is real leather! >and she pulled his shirt out from >his pants, running her hands against his back. They kept manipulating >their positions, ALL (awkwardly): Oo! Ouch! Ow! PEARL (Alexa): Let me- MADGE (Logan): Watch the elbow. PEARL (Alexa): I'm trying, but your knee is just right in my diaphragm! >more or less clothed the whole time, SCRATCH: -until she was more or less pregnant. >until they were both >seated, her with her legs across his lap, folded into the crook of his >arm, taking long, deep breaths. [Gypsy pops up from beneath the seats.] GYPSY: EAT DEATH, HAND OF BAALZEBUB! SCRATCH: Oh, snacks! Great! You got- AUGH! [Gypsy has opened her mouth to reveal a super soaker inside, which shoots a stream of liquid at Scratch. Pearl shrieks, as, by extension, she is also soaked.] >He was brushing her hair down with his hand as >she nuzzled against his chest. > PEARL (furiously shaking stuff of her arms): Eww! Yuk! What IS this stuff? Holy water? GYPSY: Powerade. Same general idea, though. SCRATCH: Ew, it's gonna dry and I'm gonna be all sticky! >"What was that," she said quietly, a little shaken by the > instantaneousness of her reaction. MADGE: Oh, disorientation, regret, ennui. All part of riding the wild Logan! GYPSY (to Scratch): So you're not banished to limbo, then? SCRATCH: Hey, wish I could. Minerva here cast a spell of binding, and I'm stuck as her familiar. PEARL: Hey, wait, familiar? You mean- you're here to SERVE me? SCRATCH: Well, in three letters? Yup. > >He didn't answer at first, then, "Maybe more of what we were wanting to >do in the hallway." MADGE (Alexa): What, ring all the doorbells and run? PEARL (to Scratch): Well why didn't you say so in the first place? SCRATCH (to Gypsy): OK. Should I assume stupid questions are the norm here? GYPSY: In three letters? PEARL: Hey! Get off my head, FAMILIAR! SCRATCH (sighing, spreading his wings and flying to an open seat): Spoilsport. GYPSY (watching Scratch fly): Woo. Pretty. > >She looked up at him and he half smiled, and she ran her finger over >his lips, then cupped his jaw, MADGE: Reared her fist back, and laid'em out like a yearbook! >and they kissed once, twice, sanely. GYPSY: With those two, that's an oxymoron! > "You can't >stay," she said, and then surprised herself by yawning. It was back. ALL: Huh? What? SCRATCH: Did Stephen King write a sequel? > >He nodded. "I had a feeling that was coming." > >She shook her head and stifled another yawn. She was good for maybe ten >minutes more, and then she knew, from experience, she'd be out like a >light. MADGE: She passes out on a punchclock? PEARL: You know, it's sad when Germans get drunk. >She'd have to be brief. "I'm not going to be just a quick fuck for >you to laugh to your partner about, Detective Mike," she said quietly. MADGE: Yeah, knowing Montague it'd go on for at least twelve pages. >"I might not even be a fuck at all for you." > >He sighed, a big long breath. "Oh, really. And how do you figure that." GYPSY (sighing): There he goes, turning on the charm again. SCRATCH: Well, look at it this way guys. If couples like this didn't breed, where would the next generation of frat boys come from? PEARL: Oh, big yuks from the lackey! Go get pretzels. SCRATCH: Say please. [Pearl threatens with the newspaper. Scratch droops his head.] SCRATCH (from Amos and Andy): OK, Kingfish. [Scratch grumbles and leaves the theater.] GYPSY: Woo. Kinda harsh, Pearl. PEARL: Why thank you! I try. > >"I mean that I don't sleep with anyone, not yet anyway, and I hardly > think I'm going to throw it all away on someone else's idea of a one > night stand." MADGE: I'm going to throw it away on an aging billionaire! > >"You haven't done this before?" it rushed out, all at once, and he > stared at her. PEARL: If you believe in virgins, clap your hands! > >It was the truth, it was some other part of Alexa he now knew. "I've >done this," she told him, and thumped him on the chest. "I just haven't >done that, if you know what I mean." GYPSY (Logan): D'oh, I was told this wouldn't be on the test! No fair! > >"So what if I was planning on just sleeping with you and never calling > you again?" > >She felt her eyes droop. "Then....you should probably go now." > PEARL: Um, this is Trojan Man? Am I late for the commercial? >Later on, Mike told her how he hadn't really been thinking on it one >way or the other, MADGE: Logan's got burning intelligence the way Nero had a burning empire. >that the idea of sleeping with someone who had more money than >he would make in his lifetime was actually the reason he had come to >the dance, but there had always been more, that x factor, GYPSY: Oo, makeup! MADGE: No, that's Max Factor, Gyps. > the feeling that all >wasn't as it seemed, a danger to the liaison, that really spurred him >on. PEARL (Michael Douglas): I'm gonna figure you out, lady! >It was that x factor that made him pause right there. It made her more >appealing in ways he couldn't describe. [ALL sigh, wearily and disgustedly.] MADGE: It's people like this who are the engine of your tattoo-based economies. >Suddenly he hugged her fiercely and >kissed the top of her head, GYPSY (Logan): I love your dandruff so much! >and sat quietly like that until she fell >asleep, which wasn't long. PEARL: Would've been sooner if he'd kept talking. >When her breathing grew warm and regular on his >chest he lifted her up and carried her to the bedroom she hadn't >checked for roommate presence in earlier, MADGE: Is roommate presence like that afghan presence she talked about earlier? PEARL: Yeah, the cheap knock-off version you find at K-mart. >and laid her down gently on the bed, >removing her shoes, and pulling a light sheet over her legs. MADGE (Logan): Um... now I lay her down to sleep... I pray the lord... don't see what I did with her panties. >By then it was >already four in the morning, and he knew he was skunked for work, so he >laid next to her and propped his head up on his hand, watching her >sleep, GYPSY: Which is marginally less interesting than Good Morning America. >and curled up, watching her until he himself fell asleep. > >When he woke up the clock told him it was already 9:10, and he peeled >himself back from her carefully, MADGE: Make sure you get the pith. It's bitter. [Scratch flies in, carrying a cloth bag in his talons. He drops the bag in front of Pearl.] SCRATCH: Your pretzels, mein fuhrer. (He lands back on her head.) PEARL: Took ya long enough. (pops one in her mouth) SCRATCH: Yeah, baked'em myself. With my own body heat. [Pearl does a spit take with the pretzel.] PEARL, GYPSY, and MADGE: EW! UGH! YUK! >splashing some water on his face in the >bathroom, and left a note on her pillow with his number. Let's go >dancing again, he'd written, and signed it Detective Mike. MADGE (Logan): P.S. I borrowed some eggs, your Watchman, and a pair of dress shields. I'll explain later. GYPSY (to Scratch): Why would you SAY something like that? SCRATCH: Well, I am a dragon. I do belch flames at oven-like temperatures, you know. PEARL (disgusted, holding a pretzel up to examine it): What ARE these things? What's with the shape? SCRATCH: Oh, I thought pretzel shapes were boring, so I made them in the shape of souls you tortured as you passed through life! See? That one's Ms. Shechter, the grade school librarian you shot with rubber bullets. PEARL (gradually recognizing): Oh, yeah! The orphan widower with the cane and anemia and the heart problem. MADGE: You SHOT a librarian? PEARL (defensive): Not in the face! There was no visible scarring. She recovered. Lay off. (eats the pretzel) Mm, salty. > She'd like that, women >liked that stuff. MADGE: You know, that whole note-leaving, Weight Watchers, Evelyn and Crabtree kind of crap. >Then he'd let himself out and downed four cups of coffee >before he made it to his desk forty minutes late. SCRATCH: Then got up from his desk, came back, got up again... > >Part One, continued > PEARL, MADGE, and SCRATCH (crying): Oh-ho-ho, NOOOOOOO!!! GYPSY (moving out of the theater): No, it's OK guys. We're done. That's a wrap. PEARL (getting up to leave): Oh, thank god! SCRATCH: Whew! Thank the other guy! GYPSY: So could this fanfic have a point, ya think? I mean, could the criminal justice system be divided into the police who investigate the crime, the district attorney who prosecutes the offenders, and the profligate band gypsy who blunders in and screws it all up? MADGE: Ahhhh... I'm not seeing it, Gyps. GYPSY: Oo. SCRATCH (to Pearl): So it's cool that I'm on your head now, right? PEARL: Mmmmmmmaybe. / * \... = 2 =... > 3 <... [ 4 ]... ( 5 )... | 6 |... [OPEN ON: Bridge of SOL. Pearl, with Scratch back on her head, is tired and pissed.] PEARL: That, was the worst posting we've ever done. MADGE (resentful): It's the only posting you've ever done. SCRATCH: I liked that part at the end. PEARL: What? SCRATCH: Well, you know. Where it stopped. [Pearl and Madge grudgingly agree when Gypsy lunges in from the left.] GYPSY: Ship coming in off the port bow! Cambot, give me rocket number nine! PEARL (confused): Satellites don't have rockets. MADGE: Shh! [INSERT: An exact duplicate of the SOL, painted a dark grey, floats next to the SOL.] GYPSY: My stars- it looks exactly like the Satellite of Love! [ANGLE ON: Hexfield irising open, showing ANOTHER Mary Jo smiling broadly in a sunhat and Hawaiian shirt on the bridge of another SOL.] PEARL: Aw, crap. It's my good twin! TRIXIE: Aloha, Pearl! Nice hat! SCRATCH: Thanks! PEARL: Trixie! What are you doin' here? TRIXIE: I sold wrapping paper to help raise money for Edgar's kids at school! As a reward, he invited me to spend a week in his Skylab of Lingering Resentment! I don't really get the name, frankly. SCRATCH: Who's Edgar? TRIXIE: Evil Mike's twin. GYPSY (happy): Mike! It's Mike! She knows Mike! TRIXIE: Oh, no, dear. No. Mike is Evil Mike in a parallel universe. Edgar is Evil Mike's twin. SCRATCH: Evil Mike has an evil twin? TRIXIE: No. GYPSY: Then who's Edgar? SCRATCH: And who are YOU? MADGE: Hush, she's Pearl's twin! TRIXIE: No, actually I'm Pearl in a parallel universe. PEARL: Wait- we're not related? TRIXIE: Well, I suppose in a cosmic sense... PEARL: Then why do you chip in for a Mother's Day gift every year? TRIXIE: It seemed so important to you. PEARL: Jeez, there's bein' good, and there's bein' a doormat, Trix! SCRATCH (stretching neck to Pearl): So this is your antibody? PEARL: No, Evil Mike is my antibody. SCRATCH: But I thought he was MIKE'S antibody! GYPSY: No, Trixie is Mike's antibody! MADGE (impatient): Trixie is Pearl in a parallel universe! SCRATCH: Then how does she know Evil Mike?! TRIXIE: I know his twin! GYPSY (happy): Mike! TRIXIE, PEARL, AND MADGE (exasperated): NO!!! SCRATCH (to Cambot, hopelessly confused): Pat? I'd like to buy a vowel? [Light flashes.] PEARL: Oh, hold on. Maybe Edgar McCarthy can straighten this out. [Pearl hits the light.] [CUT TO: The House of Pain. Evil Mike is VERY angry.] EVIL MIKE: I- AM NOT- MY TWIN- BROTHER! [Suddenly from the right ANOTHER Michael J. Nelson walks in, cool and cocky, with a shaved head, a backwards cap, Ray-Bans, oversized jeans, lots of rings and gold chains, and a Twins baseball shirt.] EDGAR: Hey, you're telling me and the whole neighborhood, man. Tone it down to eleven, OK? EVIL MIKE (annoyed): Eddie! I told you to call first! EDGAR: Oh. Um, not my fault. I was in a tunnel, man. (covers ears, pretends static) Kkkkkkkkkkk! EVIL MIKE: Eddie, you came by shuttlecraft. EDGAR: I know, but- EVIL MIKE: You can't MAKE a tunnel in space. What would you take out? EDGAR (looks into camera): Hey! A satellite of prisoners! Pretty cool. [CUT TO: SOL] PEARL: Hey! I thought you were the GOOD twin. [CUT TO: House of Pain.] EDGAR: Hey, naw, baby. I'm the COOL twin. This is Mister Uptight here. NICE MIKE NELSON (offscreen): NOW! [Bobo, Mike, Brain Guy, and the Bots let loose a battlecry as they charge from the shadows holding a cargo net. Without even looking behind him, Evil Mike wearily takes a ray gun from his belt and shoots them. Their battle cry transmutes to a groan of defeat, as all our heroes freeze in place, stopped in the act of trying to throw the net over Evil Mike.] EDGAR (jaw dropping): Lord God KING Uptight! MIKE (frozen mouth): Um... that coulda gone better. CROW (his eyes are missing): I closed my eyes. Did we win? TOM (sarcasm): Oh, sure, Crow! This is what WINNING feels like! BOBO (happily analytical): Now, to me, this feels more like, oh, humiliating defeat! With a tinge of dread, and just the slightest hint of impending doom! OBSERVER (grumbling): I swear, the minute I can reach my brain, his head is a pickle. [FOLLOW Evil Mike as he casually walks offstage to a dark, sparse, utilitarian area with cinderblock wall, stage ropes and a ladder in the background.] EVIL MIKE: And it is at this vaguely awkward moment that we end our broadcast day. Is Edgar really my brother? What fate lies in store for Mike? Speed? Racer X? And could Best Brains ever really afford the high-tech processing shots needed to put me in three roles at once? EDGAR (poking head in from left): Ooh, that's a toughie. EVIL MIKE: For the answer to these questions, or not, tune in to the next exciting episode of, "Mystery Science Theater, 3000!" EDGAR: 3000 reflects price after manufacturer's mail-in rebate. Odds of winning dependent on number of entries received. Sorry, no C.O.D.'s! EVIL MIKE (grinning evilly): Shoot'em, Edgar! EDGAR (smiling, pointing a ray gun at the camera): Man, nothin' beats a payin' gig! [Edgar pulls the trigger. We hear a sound like a slamming bank vault in an echo chamber, as white light from the gun engulfs the screen, flashes, and we FADE to black.] EVIL MIKE (voice over black): Paying? --------------------------------------------------------------------- Episode EM103: "Name of the Game", with the short "Teamwork" writers BRENDAN HERLIHY with STEVE WEINBERG Mystery Science Theater 3000 and its characters Copyright 1999 Best Brains, Inc. "Law and Order" and its characters Copyright 1999 Dick Wolf Productions. "Name of the Game" Copyright 1999 Kit Montague. "Teamwork" Copyright 1998 Eddie Delaney Jr. This work is not meant as a personal attack on Kit Montague or Eddie Delaney Jr., and is for entertainment purposes only. For more information on Pearl, Evil Mike, and how this whole stupid plot got started, consult your local library. After they throw you out, search the Pink Boy Buffet for the premiere episodes of this atrocity: "Windmills of the Gods", "Bloodlines: The Calling", and "An Open Window Observing the Battleground". e-mail PINKBOYBUFFET@HOTMAIL.COM thanks STEVE WEINBERG BRUCE NEIGER TED YEN, MIMI YEN, AND THEIR YEN-TO-BE ALL YOU MSTERS COAST-TO-COAST executive producer BRENDAN HERLIHY ------------------------------------------------------- " Oh my God, what the hell is going on," Laura shrieked as she walked in! ------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1999 Brendan Herlihy Home