Argument: How a young man of
Visigoth extraction resorts to murder; with what instrument the murder was
committed; the object(s) of his machinations; in what manner his agenbite of
inwit makes itself felt in the presence of dowager during tea.
I (EXT. Graveyard, Folsey’s funeral. Pastor Erikson
reads Folsey’s eulogy. Everyone cries.)
Pastor Erikson: Pilfering
bristles, wriggling joy, flitting blithely from table top to counter…
Folsey the filcher -- A
fornight dead.
Mrs. Porphyry: They found
him slumped over a water chestnut.
Mrs. Wellbeloved: They say
he did it with a toe-nail paring.
Colonel Wubbels: Found it
under the couch. Seems someone had left it there.
Darcy Gracchus: Had a
‘Gothic’ aspect to it…at least…that’s what I overheard the detective say.
Assembled (wailing): Too
much, too soon! Too much, too soon!
A toothless, blubbering woman
gums the Pastor’s cassock.
The men shred their hats.
Pastor Erikson: He had no
children, no biological family to speak of. He was survived by but a single
unbutton…
The toothless woman savors the
taste of her tears.
Pastor Erikson (voice
quavering): And his memory trickles like Celestial torture, or, at times,
lingers for a spell, and then, dissolves…Like the quiet, vacant labor of our
lives…
Hat in hand, unshredded, Theo
the Visigoth squirms in his chair.
Pastor Erikson: Gentlemen in
our lonely hamlet will be devastated by the sight of an even number of
toothpicks on the mantel…Ladies will suffer tacitly in their boudoirs upon
discovering their thimbles are void of tickles...And children will have clean
teeth for a very, very long time.
Unknown woman: What’s he on
about? The bit about the ladies?
The Epitaph Reads: We once found a thimble. It contained a doll
fart. Its holes were stoppered by we know not what.
II (INT. Theo’s Kitchen,
nighttime.)
In a swamp of rancid Hamburger
Helper, his hand soapily circulates, the mind folding and unfolding the scamp's
likeness soapily, soapily. And nothing, not nothing, nor not-nothing will
smooth the furrows of memory, nor explain its mystery, as all explaining is, to
wit, explaining away, and after nothing occurs, not nothing will prise it from
the glistening, crispate limbs of Time hurtling naked into nothing.
Why had he done it? Soapy handily circulates.
The lucre…The filthy, filthy
lucre.
A Cistercian reliquary
containing the following: the ponderous grape Good-N-Plenty (the onliest of its
kind), the jawbone of Girolamo; the foreskin of the Kritios Boy; the eyebrow-comb
of Ulysses, Baelo Claudian garum with the 7 apocryphal Lucky Charms’s
marshmallows: beige tapeworms, scarlet Cartouches, burgundy miscarriages, mauve
plankton, and three of Martin Scorcese’s five wives in alternating shades of
teal, orange, and blue; Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite’s 14 limited edition
Pogs depicting Ammonius Saccas, Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus, Julian
the Apostate wearing a Yarmukle, Simplicius, and Gemistus Pletho; a gazillion
bristles, and a bitten spud.
No more ketchup soup, no more
dirty dishes.
III (Midday, Lady Lemonpeel’s drawing room.)
Lady Lemonpeel: Nother cuppa'?
The Dowager Lady Grapeskin: Why
certainly.
Leif (fresh from pagan lands):
“Half…no three quarters naked…shit in their hair…fucking brown and sweating…I
got the fuck out of there ASAP.”
Several images of young,
well-knit, bronzed savages flicker in Theo’s mind.
Theo fidgets in his chair,
convinces himself his temple itches, scratches his temple, thinks the walrus on
Leif’s helmet is stupid, thinks he’s stupid and pompous, feels hot, then cold,
then hot again, deploys a smile regarding no one.
He hardly knew the little guy.
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